Primary Emotion
by adangeli
Summary: After seventeen weeks of torture in a Goa'uld prison, Samantha Carter is rescued by SG-1. In the time that follows she must relearn how to relate to her team, reassess her relationships with both herself and others, and decide whether or not she'll continue to step through the Stargate. Luckily she's got the benefit of a good psychologist and the love of a great man. Sam/Jack
1. Tertiary Emotion: Dread

**_Author's Note: This story is the first thing of any length I've written in a very long time. It's been several years in the making. It's also my first significant work in this fandom and it is, as always, a bit intimidating writing for a new audience. But, as they say, life starts on the edge of our comfort zone._**

**_This story will be dark in places. It will be light sometimes, too. It is, at the base of things, a love story. I hope you enjoy.  
_**

**_Also, this story is cross posted to AO3. The chapters should be identical. If that changes for any reason, I'll be sure to let you know._**

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**Part I: Fear**

She's been reduced to dread. Somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind, where her education now resides, she remembers dread being a tertiary emotion. It's the only emotion she's conscious of feeling anymore.

Heavy footsteps echo down the hall. The loose bits of metal on the wall jingle together as the footsteps draw closer. Armor clinks and she feels the sound down deep in her marrow. The tap of a staff weapon on the stone floor makes her gnash her teeth.

A Jaffa, broad and dark, pierces her with his eyes. He reaches for the bars that imprison her and she can't even find what it takes to be frightened.

It's going to happen again.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Metal cuffs bite into her wrists. It doesn't exactly hurt anymore. Blood drips down the side of her head and tickles her ear. A giggle bubbles up from within her but she wouldn't call it anything. An autonomic response, maybe. Nothing more. She can't even remember the last time she giggled.

_No giggling._

She sobers. No giggling. Right.

She hears footsteps again and despite everything she sighs with relief. She's been hanging by her wrists for a while and her shoulders are beginning to ache.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She doesn't really sleep anymore. She closes her eyes, her breathing slows, and she pushes thoughts of anything –thoughts of home – down into whatever safe place might yet be inside her. She might even stop thinking. It's not like she's thought of anything of consequence in…she's not sure how long. She's not even sure how long she's been here.

Food doesn't come at any sort of regular interval. Water neither. There's no light to be had save for firelight sconces in a dank hall she can almost see down from the front corner of her cell she doesn't venture to anymore.

He comes at any time. So no, she doesn't sleep anymore. Sometimes she finds she blinks out for a moment but it's usually when she's strung up on the wall. When she's comparatively comfortable? No. Sleep is a weakness anyway. And she learned long ago that weakness is punished with a stronger hand than pride.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The smell makes her think she might be underground. It smells like dirt where she is. Or maybe it's her that smells like dirt. She'd never know – he's always got the same scowl on his face like he's smelled something awful. Except when he makes her bleed.

He'd have a nice smile if only she could see it without a haze of blood over her eyes. It makes his teeth red and that leaves her feeling vaguely unsettled.

When she's lying on the floor with her cheek against the cold, hard-packed clay, the smell of earth is so strong she can't imagine she's anywhere but underground. Which seems awfully fitting. She wonders how far it might be.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She tries to make the most of her lucid moments – the odd moments when things make sense and she remembers she's trained to get the hell out of situations like these.

She seems to remember having had help but she can't imagine who that might have been. She remembers someone called Carter. She remembers Teal'c most often, but that's because the Jaffa reminds her so much of him. She remembers a Daniel. She remembers a Jack. But she can't remember why she knows them.

Sometimes when the light reflects from the hall, off Jaffa armor, onto the wall of her cell, the green of the moss there makes her think of home. But she can't remember living anywhere but here.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

In one corner of the cell is her hill. It's not much, but it's important when the water comes. At first, when the water came, she'd be under it or desperate to keep her nose above it. It took forever and ten bloody fingernails to fashion her hill but at least now her face is above the water and all she has to do is lie there.

That's good because she doesn't feel much like doing anything but lying around anymore. He still strings her up from time to time, but mostly now he does what he needs to do while she lays prostrate on the floor.

That's good – because she can't even think about moving her shoulders without having to swallow down bitter bile.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Sometimes the pain stick makes her fingers itch for the trigger of an automatic weapon. She has vivid memories of an automatic weapon and a firing range. And her father. She can't remember a single thing about her family except for the vivid image of her father in a blue uniform taking a rifle out of her hands and pulling her into a hug.

She remembers the feel of heavy clothing, which is strange because she can't even remember the last time she had clothing. It's been so unimportant for so long she can't even imagine why she would have been wearing it.

It doesn't stop anything from happening. It doesn't stop anything from hurting. It doesn't even stop anyone from looking. And since she can't really use her arms or hands anymore, she's pretty thankful that she doesn't have any to contend with.

Besides, the layers of grime that cover her provide her more modesty than any clothing ever could.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She hears something that sounds like thunder. She can't even remember the last time weather meant anything to her. Blue light bounces down the hall and it puts her in mind of lightening. Strange that a storm would be happening underground.

But then she hears voices that speak the same language she speaks in her head. She hasn't heard words like that from another voice in so long.

But hanging back up on the wall, this time by more useful ankles, she figures that it doesn't really matter what words the weather might be throwing around down here. He'll be back eventually, and no amount of rain could solve anything.

Her eyes slip closed and she lets the thunder of the voices wash over her and she thinks of a place that might have been home.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Her eyes spring open when cool hands fasten around her calves and warmer hands tickle her feet as they try to remove the shackles. The only things in her field of vision are combat boots – eight of them. She remembers having had combat boots but can't imagine why she would have.

The hands continue to tickle at her feet and ankles and she tries to jerk away from the feeling.

"Easy, we've got you now."

"I think there's something wrong with her arms."

"She needs fluids."

"She _needs_ to be down from here."

"I believe she is conscious."

She slams her eyes closed. It's always better when they think she's unconscious. But then her feet are free and instead of falling she's laid down gently so her feet rest on her hill.

Fingers press against her neck. "Her pulse is very weak. She needs fluids immediately. We'll need a stretcher."

"She going to be okay going through the gate?"

"She'll have to be."

"It is unwise to remain here any longer."

Cautiously she opens her eyes again. These people can't possibly mean to hurt her. Her eyes meet worried brown ones.

"Can you hear me?"

She nods.

"Good. We're going to move you now."

Eight hands lift her off the ground and the pain is so intense she can't help but sleep. Finally.


	2. Secondary Emotion: Nervousness

When she opens her eyes there's so much light she can't help but squeeze them shut again. She can't remember ever having seen so much light. She finds it a wonder that light can be as blinding as darkness.

"Sam?"

She waits and wonders if Sam's voice will sound familiar. The others did, now that she thinks back on it. She's not quite sure who they were but they were familiar.

Sam doesn't answer so she opens her eyes again. The light still hurts but she manages to keep her eyes open through one quick breath before she closes them again.

"Carter?"

Carter. That's another name she remembers. No voice is forthcoming. Why don't these people talk? Of course, she's spent the last forever willing _him_ to shut up, so perhaps she's finally been granted her wish.

She tries her eyes one more time. This time she squints and the worried brown eyes are back. She looks down to a pert nose and further still to soft, slight scowling lips. The lips move, "Sam?" Brown Eyes is looking right at her.

She looks down further and sees a nametag, "Fraiser." She can't imagine how she can read the strange writing, but it looks like the language sounds in her head so she thinks she must really have been able to read something once.

"Sam, can you hear me?"

Fraiser seems to be talking to her. She opens her mouth to speak, can feel her lips move, hears an odd scratching sound come out of her mouth – but it doesn't sound anything like the language in her head.

"I don't think she can talk, doc."

Fraiser glances away with an irritated look on her face. "Thank you, Colonel."

She turns her head to towards the other voice. More brown eyes. She looks down the face again – strong, whiskery jaw, tanned skin, nametag, "O'Neill". She looks back up. This one is familiar to her but the name is wrong. The voice stirs something within her, though.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Natalie collapses into the brown leather chair and cringes as the castors scrape across the concrete floor. There are files spilling out of a four-drawer filing cabinet, piled high along a cheap metal credenza, and obscuring the top of her desk. It's a fine mess left to her by Dr. Mackenzie.

Nearly twenty airmen are on scheduled sessions and another thirty require at least a single follow-up of some kind. A dozen are awaiting post-mission reviews. Seven require pre-posting determinations.

She sighs. All of this and she's still reeling over the news that her patients require her expertise thanks to events that happened _on other planets_.

A knock on her open office door grabs her attention. The tiny woman she instantly recognizes as the base Chief Medical Officer, Janet Fraiser.

"Doctor Jordan?"

Natalie stands and smoothes her hands over hair that had been, six hours ago, relatively dry and frizz-free. "Yes. Doctor Fraiser, right?"

Doctor Fraiser nods. "Looks like you're…" the doctor trails off and casts a wary glance around the office, "absolutely buried." A bright grin flashes across her mouth but lines of stress etched deep around her eyes don't ease.

"Apparently you guys are breaking all kinds of records here." Natalie tries for disarming but thinks she comes off a little too sarcastic. She shakes her head. "Sorry. You needed something?"

Doctor Fraiser steps further into the room and Natalie notices a thick manila folder in her hand. "We recovered an SG team member from a Go'auld prison off world yesterday. She's going to need an eval."

Natalie takes the folder and flips it open. "Samantha Carter. Major. Presents with—" she cuts off her narration with a thick exhale but continues reading page after page of injuries in the stark relief of laser toner and military grade paper. "She's speaking?" she finally asks when it seems like every other question is six kinds of pointless.

Doctor Fraiser shrugs a little with just one shoulder. "Yeah."

"Impressive," Natalie says more to herself than to the other doctor.

"You'll find most things about Sam are pretty damn impressive."

The way the woman says it makes Natalie observe, "You're friends."

Same shrug, same half answer. "Yeah."

"Are you close?"

Doctor Fraiser looks uncomfortable and suddenly Natalie is grateful she's not military herself. "It's okay, Doctor. There's nothing wrong with friendship."

"Yeah, well…" She does that maddening half shrug once more and Natalie can't help but think Janet Fraiser might benefit from a few sessions of her own.

"Well," Natalie says and flips the folder closed, "send her down when you're ready. It'll probably be, what? Four days? Six? Until you release her?"

"She's got three dislocated joints, various breaks and fractures, a crushed trachea, and a lacerated gall bladder." Doctor Fraiser says these things with a hint of incredulity.

"So you're saying it'll be longer?"

"I'm saying it'll be longer."

"I'll come to her, then," Natalie says. But she's talking to Doctor Fraiser's back. She thinks she probably made a bad impression.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Two days later Natalie still hasn't made it up to start Major Carter's evaluation and when Jack O'Neill steps into her office she really wishes she'd had more time.

"You're the new head shrinker, right?" he opens without even a hint of kindness.

"I am," she says as she stands up from the nest of boxes she's been in since seven that morning. She glances at her watch as she brushes dust bunnies off her slacks. Three o'clock. She wonders idly if the commissary is still serving lunch. "And you're Jack O'Neill." His file was in the pile of necessary follow-ups.

"You need to clear Carter."

"I'm sorry?"

"Major Carter. You have to clear her before she can resume her duties. You haven't seen her yet."

"Mister O'Neill—"

"Colonel." He says it with such a hard glint in his eye that she very nearly laughs. But she suspects men like Jack O'Neill don't much like being laughed at.

"Colonel O'Neill," she placates, "it's my understanding that Major Carter will be in the infirmary for quite some time longer. And also that she's having a bit of trouble speaking at the moment. And furthermore, that even if I cleared her for gate travel at this very moment, there are quite a few physical requirements she'll still need to meet."

He shifts uncomfortably. He's clearly a man that's both used to being in charge and also used to action. He's silent and she thinks, in the situation they're in, that it's a very uncharacteristic reaction.

"Colonel," she says more kindly, "I'm still getting my feet under me. As you can see," she gestures around the office, "things were left in quite a state. I understand Major Carter is important to you all—"

"Who else has been here?"

"Well, Doctor Fraiser brought me her file." She shakes her head to clear it. "I understand Major Carter's importance here. And I will do her evaluation. But honestly, Colonel, whether it happens yesterday or five days from now matters not. She's healing. She's got a good bit of physical healing to do before we can even start on emotional healing."

"You haven't even evaluated her yet. For all you know all the healing she's got to do is physical."

But Natalie can tell by the look on his face that he doesn't believe what he's just said. She gestures at a chair despite being certain he's not the kind of man who sits when he could be standing. She sinks into a chair anyway. "I've been doing this a long time. Fifteen years, in fact. My specialty is PTSD and I've been working with POWs for the last ten years. I know that the things Major Carter experienced while she was in that prison are going to affect her. No, I've never met her. I don't know how things are going to manifest. But I can _guarantee you_ that things _are_ going to manifest. We're going to have some significant work to do before she gets back the façade she had before."

And then, to her complete and utter surprise, Jack O'Neill sinks brokenly into a grey fabric chair. He scrubs a hand through his short silver hair and suddenly he looks very old and not at all like the intimidating soldier who'd marched into her office moments ago.

She sighs. "You're friends." It's the second time she's observed the same and she's beginning to get the impression that everyone's got a soft spot in their hearts for Samantha Carter.

"She's my second in command."

"But she's your friend."

"She's my _second_ in _command_," he says again in a way that, for most people she's certain, would brook no argument.

"But," she says slowly as if to a child, "she's your _friend_."

"Look, doc," he says suddenly standing, "I'm her CO. It's my job to make sure everything is clicking along for her return to her duties."

"Colonel, sit down," she says in the voice that generally makes people do what she's asking. She's seventy percent sure it won't work on Jack O'Neill and she's right. She tries a different tack. "Colonel? Please?"

He quirks an eyebrow at her but does as she asks.

"I understand that the military has regulations. I understand that relationships aren't meant to get too deep, too close. But I'm not accusing you of anything here. You're friends. I could tell even if I hadn't gotten my doctorate in psychology. Not for nothing, but I could tell Doctor Fraiser is her friend, too. What I can't figure out is why you're all so hell bent on convincing me you're not her friends. To be honest with you, she's going to need friends. Lots of 'em. This isn't going to be an easy process for her.

"As her commanding officer, you're privy to the recount of what happened to her in that prison, right? And to her medical condition now?"

He sighs again and she suspects that's all she'll get from him by way of any emotion that isn't anger. "Yeah."

"And I've read your file, too. I know your history. You've been _exactly_ where she is right now. You remember what it took to get through it?"

"Yeah," he says, warily this time.

"Well, that's what she's in for. Major Carter isn't married. Does she have a close family? A boyfriend? Hell, a dog?"

"No," he hedges.

"No. What she does have, Colonel, are her friends. She's got you all. Her team. She's going to need you to be a friend long before she's going to need you to be her commanding officer." She lets him stare in her general direction for a moment. "Now, Colonel, if you'll excuse me. I've got several more _boxes _of files to get through. And then I've got some evaluations to get done. Please, stop on your way out and make an appointment with Airman Cullison. You're way overdue for a follow-up and it's about time I started making a dent in those."

She swivels her chair away from him before he can even rise and she gets the impression he's not a man who spends much time getting dismissed. She thinks the sensation will probably do him a bit of good.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Carter, I think you should get a dog."

She looks up from her jello. "Um, what?" She's not sure she's up for getting her sweater off the table next to her and he wants her to get a dog?

"A dog, you know. For the company."

"I don't think Janet's going to let me have a dog in the infirmary."

A look passes across his face as if he just realized she's going to be taking up space in the infirmary for quite a bit longer. She can promise him it's something she's been dwelling on for quite some time. As if she hadn't been a prisoner long enough. She'd seen the date on the news three days ago. She'd been missing for seventeen weeks.

"Sir." She tacks it on as an afterthought, but then she realizes it had been nearly a minute since she'd last spoken and it likely came across as pissy and insubordinate. Well…tough.


	3. Tertiary Emotion: Mortification

**_Author's Note_****_:_**_ Many thanks to those who have taken the time to read and drop me a line so far. Equal thanks to those, also, who have chosen just to read along - I hope you enjoy. I try, as often as possible, to respond to reviews - especially when specific questions are raised. Anonymous reviews are enabled but please remember I cannot respond if you don't sign in._

_A note for those who are new to my work - I write because I love it. I write because I physically have to. My stories are precisely what they are. I don't change my route based on feedback (though I will correct mistakes when they're pointed out and I'd love it if you told me when you found one!). I don't write for the reviews (though they're lovely) and will never hold my readership hostage for them or badger you for them. But most of all, rest assured that it will all come together. If some characterization doesn't make sense or if a plot point doesn't yet make sense, rest in comfort knowing an answer is coming your way. And no, I'm not going to spoil my work by telling you ahead of time - where's the fun in that? _

_As you may have noticed, I'm not posting on a schedule. I write and post as I have enough in the "bank" that if I have a dry spell it won't bring the story to a grinding halt (I've learned my lesson in that department). So, with all that said, on with the real reason you're here - the story.  
_

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Natalie's first meeting with Major Carter didn't go well. She found the woman wholly distrustful of new people but isn't sure if the issue is related to Major Carter's recent trauma or some previous issue.

The second meeting wasn't much better, but at least the Major hadn't scowled at her the whole time. While she was still disinclined to share information, she hadn't been rude.

But, Natalie is nothing if not persistent and she's always been a big believer that the third time really is a charm.

When she knocks on the slightly ajar door and sticks her head into the private room Major Carter is occupying, she's pleasantly surprised to see all of SG-1 present. By happy accident she's caught her patient in a moment of relaxation and, perhaps, levity. But as soon as the group notices Natalie's presence the low chuckles cease entirely.

Doctor Jackson is the first to find his manners. He clears his throat before he speaks and, for some reason, she thinks it's annoying. "Doctor Jordan. Hi."

Natalie flashes a smile. "I didn't mean to interrupt. I can come back later." She gestures over her shoulder as if she's prepared to just up and leave. She isn't.

Colonel O'Neill surprises her. "Eh, c'mon in, Doc. We were just headed out to pick up some not-made-on-base food for picky here."

She'd have thought he'd be slightly protective of the Major. Had thought he'd, perhaps, try to stick around and get a little inside information. But then she takes in the dynamics of the room. The large man whose name she can't remember – the one with the gold snake on his forehead – stands at parade rest at the foot of the hospital bed. Doctor Jackson sits on a stool right next to the bed at Major Carter's waist. But O'Neill… O'Neill is standing at Major Carter's shoulders, feet at shoulder width apart and arms crossed over his chest. Moreover, he'd been standing that way when Natalie walked in. Either he wasn't getting the information he wanted from the Major or he'd gotten some information and wasn't feeling very good about it. And considering the situation, either was as likely as the other.

Daniel and the other man leave the room while shooting Natalie polite smiles. Well, Daniel smiled. The other man just sort of…nodded. But then Colonel O'Neill surprises her again. When it's just him and the two women, he says loud enough for Major Carter to hear, "I've got an appointment tomorrow morning, first thing. See you then, Doc." And then he's gone, too. Interesting, but she's not sure what to make of the time or placement of his statement.

Without her bodyguards, Natalie notices Major Carter suddenly looks uncomfortable. So, she decides to ease into conversation if she can. "How're you feeling today, Major Carter."

The blonde woman blinks and Natalie finds herself transfixed, momentarily, by the blue of her eyes. Natalie's own eyes are the very same blue. She gives herself a mental shake – _don't identify with the patient, Nat._

Samantha Carter doesn't break ranks. She's just as abrupt today as she's been previously. "As well as can be expected."

Natalie moves further into the room and takes a seat on the stool that Doctor Jackson vacated. "You're looking better everyday," Natalie tells her. And she does. Actually, Natalie's surprised by how quickly the woman's bruising is fading and minor lacerations are healing.

Major Carter takes a moment to size her up and apparently doesn't find her too lacking because she shares, "My father's here. He's tok'ra."

"Ah, I see."

Inexplicably, the Major cracks a smile. "I thought you guys only said that in movies."

Natalie can't help but laugh. "Well, it's cliché for a reason."

"Just don't use that line on Colonel O'Neill. He hates clichés."

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind." How strange the woman would share something like that. And she must have a puzzled look on her face.

Major Carter's voice takes on a conspiratorial tone. "Actually, he's kind of nuts about clichés. He's full of them. He'll roll his eyes if you use one. Might even give you hell for it. But he's got a good sense of humor and he'll talk to you if you don't pretend to be his friend or get too high and mighty about psychological treatment."

"Thanks. Again." But Natalie can see this for what it is and so changes the subject. "You mentioned your father's a tok'ra. I'm sorry…but I'm not really sure how that pertains…"

Major Carter sighs and Natalie knows then that she was right. The interlude on Colonel O'Neill was meant to be a diversionary tactic. But to Natalie's surprise, Major Carter answers honestly. "The tok'ra are a divergence of the goa'uld line. That means they can use goa'uld technology. In this case, a healing device. But my injuries are so severe…"

"…That it's going to take a little while," Natalie surmises.

"Yeah."

"Well, I'm glad he's here and able to help, then."

Major Carter grimaces slightly but schools her features quickly. "Me too."

Natalie decides to take an opportunity hoping it won't bite her in the ass. But she's gotten this far by being a bit gutsy and a little less than as politically correct as others in her position might be. "I did just step in to check on you today. But you know eventually we're going to have a slightly more…professional…interaction, right."

"Yes," Major Carter says hesitantly.

"I think I can help you work through these things, Major Carter. I'll tell you now, if you don't like me, don't want to work with me, we'll find you someone you _can _talk to. But make no mistake. The Air Force is going to demand you deal with this in psychological treatment and you will need to be cleared before you can return to active duty. I've read your report and the medical records," she pauses while Major Carter blushes a deep red, "so I know what you're starting with. I've worked with people who have had similar experiences at the hands of earth-bound terrorists. I'm not sure how it's going to differ from what you experienced but I think we can help you. Together."

"Well then," Major Carter says after a long moment, "maybe you should start by calling me Sam."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She dreams when she sleeps so she tries very hard not to sleep. But between Janet's drugs and the flu virus her body wasn't strong enough to fend off, sleep claims her more often than she'd like. When she's awake she tries to keep up the good little soldier act everyone seems to prefer. The truth is, though, that she'd rather not talk, is physically pained by smiling or laughing, pretends to find the humor in things that used to make her laugh readily, and just really wants the guys to leave her alone.

She's angry that they left her. It doesn't matter that she knows they didn't leave her on purpose. It doesn't matter that they must have worked tirelessly to get her home – of course, she doesn't know that for certain because anytime someone starts to talk about the time when she was away she promptly changes the subject. It certainly doesn't matter that they're her guys and she knows they love her.

All she can think is that they left her there to be beaten. Left her there to be tortured. To forget that there was any life that wasn't the life she had in that cell. Left her there to forget who and what she was. To forget her history. Left her there to contemplate never having a future.

Mostly, though, she's absolutely mortified that those three men, the guys she always thinks of as _hers_, not to mention the General and her father, and Janet, and now even Doctor Jordan… they all _know._ They know precisely how she'd been tortured. How she'd been _violated_. And she's absolutely positive no matter how much healing she does that they'll never look at her the same again. How could they? She'd been nothing more than trash to be used however the Jaffa had wanted. She'd been compost for seventeen weeks. And even if they could somehow look past that, how could they ever trust her again? Even if, by the grace of something wild and holy, she was cleared for active duty again, how could they trust that she wouldn't break? That she wouldn't falter at some crucial moment and get them all killed or worse? Because something she now knows first hand is that there are many things out there worse than death.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

_She's putting on a hell of an act_ – Jack can't help but think every time he sees her. Sure, she smiles. Sometimes she laughs. She holds up her end of a conversation. She doesn't complain about the pain she's got to be feeling – tok'ra healing device or not. It's her eyes. The light has absolutely gone out.

He shifts in the chair where he's waiting outside Doc Jordan's office. She's apparently got a parade of airman this morning, hustling them in and out for their Mackenzie mandated follow ups. He's only met the woman a few times and already he thinks she's a better fit for the SGC than that shrub ever was. She's got a spark, a little bit of feistiness, that puts him in mind of the other lady doctors he spends time around. And she gives as good as she gets. He likes that. Hell, he was here, wasn't he?

Also, he figured this was as good a way as any to size her up and make sure she really does have Carter's best interests at heart. He may not hate the woman, but he still didn't think all this psychobabble was really necessary. They were all military – they thrive on being able to stand alone, strong in their ranks. And no amount of touchy-feely crap could really help.

Except, what Carter went through was damn awful. He should know. There wasn't a thing those goa'uld-incubating bastards did to her that he didn't have done to him in an Iraqi prison. Where the Jaffa used pain sticks, the insurgents used car batteries. Just as the Jaffa had stripped her down to wear her down, so had the Iraqi done to him. Just as they had violated her, he had been violated.

As his thoughts begin to spiral into the place that makes him rage, Doctor Jordan pops her head out of her office. "Colonel O'Neill? I'm ready for you."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

When Natalie curls up on her couch that night she sobs. This job, these people…she's not sure how they do what they do, how they see what they see and keep going. She's brushed up against all the elements she encountered that day hundreds of times over the course of her career. But somehow the gate travel, the enormity of what they're doing, it just hits her in her solar plexus.

When Erin comes in twenty minutes later, Natalie turns her face away from a kiss. She wants the comfort, but she had a case of the ugly, messy sobs. Instead, Erin wraps her grandmother's crocheted afghan around Natalie's shoulders and presses a vanilla latte into her hand. She'll be ready to start again tomorrow.


	4. Primary Emotion: Fear

Natalie has to admit she's surprised to see Sam sitting across from her after only twelve days in the infirmary. In that time she's been able to turn the office into something that more resembles a living room than an institutional supply closet. It doesn't seem to matter if she's treating civilians or servicemen; they all rather sit on a couch than peer at her across metal desk.

"Daniel told me he'd come to see you."

Natalie just waits. There might have been a full stop at the end of that sentence, but Sam certainly isn't done.

"About me."

Natalie nods. "Yes, he did."

"And?"

"And you're welcome to talk to him about what was said here." At Sam's hard look she continues, "It would be counterproductive, _today_, for us to talk about how this situation is affecting your teammates. Or to talk about what they are peripherally thinking about how you're handling things. They know you better than anyone here. I'd venture a guess that they know you better than anyone at all. But I also know they're getting some bad intel."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're hiding. Of course you're still hiding. This is a big thing to deal with. It's going to pop up in the strangest places even though you've already started fitting your life back together. But here's the thing: I've talked to them all. And not one of them has mentioned that you're scared. I've heard angry. I've heard sullen. I've even heard 'strangely okay'."

"I'm not scared," Sam says flippantly.

"And I'm not new," Natalie counters. She gestures to the corner of the room where a small table with a coffee pot sits. "Coffee?"

"No, thank you."

"I'm going to fix a cup," she cajoles.

"No. Thank you." Sam waits until Natalie sits back down. "I am angry."

"Okay. Why?"

"Why?!" Sam scoffs.

"Yes. I don't blame you. I think a lot of people would be angry. I want to know, _specifically_, why _you_ are angry."

"I was beaten, raped and tortured. Wouldn't you be angry?"

"Sure. But why are _you_ angry."

Sam stands suddenly and for a moment Natalie is sure she's going to flee. But instead she starts pacing back and forth across the small space with a definite limp. "I'm angry about _everything_!" Sam shouts when her back is to Natalie and she hopes Airman Cullison really is discreet because there's no way he hadn't heard Sam's outburst.

"They left me there," Sam says with quiet contempt.

Natalie fights the urge to validate the statement.

"The things I endured, no one should _ever_ have to live through that. I'm angry because I can't do my job now because of what's been done to me. I'm angry because I'm not the person I was before that mission. I'm angry because I can never be that person again. I'm always, from now on, going to be a person that experienced those things on that planet."

Sam's still facing away from her when Natalie says, "There are different kinds of emotions. There are emotions we call primary. Those are the big ones, like anger. Also, fear. What you're experiencing right now, Sam, isn't really anger."

Sam wheels around, her mouth open to retort.

"No, hear me out." Natalie holds up a forestalling hand. "These things you're saying are rooted in fear. '_I'm scared I won't be able to do my job because of what's been done to me.' 'I'm scared I won't be the person I was before that mission.' 'I'm scared I'll never be her again.' 'I'm scared I'll never move past what happened on that planet.'_ That's what I heard. It's in your voice.

"Here's the thing, Sam. You will, eventually, be able to do your job. You will be the woman you were before the mission and you'll be her even though you experienced the things you did. And you will learn to move past those things. I think you're not as sure as I am. That's not anger. It's fear."

Sam sits back down and Natalie leans back in her seat.

"When people experience trauma, especially trauma associated with imprisonment, sometimes they start to have a tough time identifying emotions. Hell, some people are just generally bad at identifying emotions. They're tricky. And the truth is, you might not really know what you're feeling unless you understand which underlying issue is driving the emotion."

"So I'm scared."

"What does being happy feel like?"

Sam sputters for a moment, opening and closing her mouth. "Well, I don't know how to describe it."

"Try."

Sam gapes at her. "I can't!"

"When was the last time you felt happy?"

"Before I was left on that planet," she spits.

"Specifically."

"I don't know, Doctor."

Natalie looks at Sam and she looks exhausted. They've only been talking for a few minutes but it's enough for the moment. "I think we're done for today."

"What," Sam says sarcastically, "we don't get an hour?"

"Sessions very rarely last an hour anywhere. You're lucky if you get forty-five minutes." Natalie closes her notebook with a smile. "But we're not on any time constraints. We're done when we're done. And today we're done now. My door's always open to you. If you want to talk later, come on by. But you look like you could use a break. And maybe a sandwich."

Sam looks like she thinks Natalie's quite off her rocker.

"Honestly, Sam. This really isn't like what you've seen on television. We're not going to meet once a week for an hour. I'm not going to make you lie down on a couch and tell you how your dreams are all about sex and how it's all your mother's fault. We'll work on what we can when we can and the rest of the time we'll just make sure you're getting through the day to day."

"Okay," Sam says sounding more relaxed than Natalie had ever heard her. "Then one last thing before I go. If this is about getting me through the day to day, how do I get through conversations with my team when all I really want to do is beat the crap out of all of them?"

Natalie laughs and appreciates the small grin it brings to Sam's lips. "You remember that they're also the ones who brought you home."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"You know, I'm not so sure you're actually a psychologist."

"Well then," she echoed one of Sam's earlier statements, "perhaps you'd better call me Natalie."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jack throws another punishing punch at the bag and revels in the sharp spikes of pain that travel up his forearm from his knuckles. The skin splits and it occurs to him he should have taped his hands. He swings again. Eh, too late already anyway.

He seethes with anger. He never seems to say the right things to Carter. She's floundering. She's not even faking anything well. He knows she must be angry with him. With all of them. But he can't bring himself to ask her outright. She'd lie anyway. And he's terrified to hear her voice what he already knows to be true. He's terrified she's not going to be cleared for active duty. Mostly, he's terrified she'll never forgive him.

He thinks back. He never really forgave Frank Cromwell. Oh sure, he turned from mad as hell to caustic. And he may have even found a little of the old kinship as he watched his old friend sucked through the event horizon to his death. But no, he never really forgave him. And he'll always hate Frank at least a little for his part in the worst chapter of Jack's life.

And Jack hates himself a little, too, because he knows exactly what Sam's going through – as much as empathy can transfer – and he has absolutely no idea what to say to her.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Sam pokes at the soggy white bread that lays lifelessly atop something that vaguely resembles tuna salad. She's come to a place where base food makes her irrationally angry. Base food. Base lighting. Base beds. Base smells. Base people. She pictures smashing all them against constricting grey base walls.

"Would you like something else, Major Carter?"

Sam sighs but doesn't look up. "No, Teal'c, I wouldn't."

He sits down across from her without invitation and suddenly she's picturing smashing Teal'c up against the block wall. She snorts because even if she ever were capable of such a feat, she's certainly not now after seventeen weeks of torture and starvation. She pushes back from the table with far more force than is strictly necessary.

"You have not finished your lunch."

She shoves her tray at him. It collides with his and an explosion of fruit salad flies into his chest. He jumps out of his chair and to her his shocked expression appears furious. She pushes back in her chair but her up and out momentum causes her to knock backward out of the chair. He reaches across the table and while she knows – she knows for absolute certain – he means to help her, the irrational part of her brain reacts with abject fear. She cries out and scuttles backward and backward until she's wedged into a corner and behind a table.

"Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please, I didn't mean to, I'm sorry," and tears are coursing down her face and she's absolutely mortified that she's begging Teal'c for the same mercy he's always shown her. When she's finally able to catch her breath she notices Teal'c crouched down several feet in front of her, his hands dangling with the palms facing toward her. Bits of fruit cling to his t-shirt and flaked coconut perches comically on his shoulder.

"I am unharmed, Major Carter. And you'll find you are as well."

She chances meeting his eye and is shocked to find a small twinkle of humor there.

"Though perhaps I should go change my shirt."

"Teal'c, I—"

"Do not worry, Major Carter. I now know not to comment on your eating habits."

And for the first time in months her laugh is genuine.


	5. 131 Days Ago

**Part II: Sadness**

Jack and Teal'c haul Daniel through the gate by his forearms and as the scientist materializes on ramp in the gate room he is still screaming, "—an't just leave her here, Jack!"

He looks startled when the sounds of staff weapon fire are replaced by the echo of his voice in the cavernous concrete room.

General Hammond's voice booms over the loudspeaker, "SG-1, report!"

"The son-of-a-bitching-snake-bellied-mother-fucking-pai n-in-the-asses have her, General. Major Carter's been captured and compromised."

The iris slides closed behind the men.

"Briefing room now, Colonel. Your med-evals will have to wait."

In the briefing room Hammond allows the men a few moments to compose themselves. Jack paces in an uncomfortable arc around the table. Teal'c fidgets restlessly until George worries the man will break his own fingers. Daniel is a mass of sucking sobs that turn his face a deep magenta and his eyes a brilliant and watery pink.

"Pull it together, Daniel," Jack barks.

"I can't believe we just left her there. She's…god only knows what…Jesus, Jack!"

"Major Carter is a formidable warrior, Daniel Jackson. She will not share any of your secrets with Votan or his Jaffa."

Daniel stares at him aghast. "I can honestly say that was the last thing on my mind."

"Unfortunately, not on mine, Doctor Jackson," Hammond interjects. "Colonel O'Neill?"

"Well, it's not exactly the most pressing concern I have at the moment."

"Your report, Colonel," Hammond badgers gently. He knows where the priorities of Major Carter's team lay; he needn't the reminder from each corner. What he does need to know, however, is what happened between a fairly innocuous report from SG-1 thirty hours ago and only three quarters of his flagship team stepping through the gate.

"We don't have time for this, General. Every moment we waste here decreases the chances we'll be able to rescue her."

"Votan is more likely to keep her alive for the…entertainment value…she'll provide to his troops than he is to kill her, O'Neill."

The color drains from Jack's face.

"Are you saying—"

But Jack cuts the General off. "I told you she'd been compromised."

"I didn't know you meant…" and George finds himself unable to complete the sentence.

But Daniel continues the thought with reprobation, "that she'd been raped? Repeatedly? And that was just during the time we used to mount our rescue? That we have no idea how many times it's happened since we decided to leave her there?" Daniel flashes hot eyes at Jack.

"I'll remind you to watch your tone, Doctor Jackson. I'm not unsympathetic to the situation and you know me well enough to know that."

But Hammond may well have not even spoken because the end of his sentence is nearly obscured by O'Neill's incensed outburst, "You think I wanted to leave her there, Daniel?"

Daniel flies to his feet. "You're the one that ordered us out of there. You're the one whose name she was screaming for help. And you just walked away."

Jack's eyes go steely and lurches in Daniel's direction; his pointing finger stops inches from the younger man's nose. "You of all people should understand what that cost me." He makes a quick glance at Hammond as if he's said too much.

He has. But then again, it's not like he's providing any new information. George Hammond is neither blind nor stupid. What he is, though, is hopeful and he's always hoped things hadn't gone too far between O'Neill and Carter.

"Gentleman, the events of the last thirty hours, please."

Jack listens attentively as Daniel recounts the story of the festival to which the inhabitants of PX6-432, who refer to themselves as the Votani, had issued SG-1 an invitation. On the heels of a two-day recon mission that had been extended to a two week wait-out-the-weather trip, the festival had been both a welcome change of pace and an irritating delay in SG-1's return home.

But George had heard all of this. He already knew all about the invitation to the festival that, once begun, would ensnare his team for four days – it was that very invitation the Colonel had dialed in to inform him of just thirty hours ago. What he doesn't yet know is, "Doctor Jackson, what happened between the start of the festival and only three of you returning through the gate? Colonel, what happened to Major Carter?"

But it's Teal'c who answers the questions: "Votan arrived."


	6. Tertiary Emotion: Pity

_**Author's Note: For the person who asked and didn't leave me a way to reply - we are, perhaps, about 20% of the way through this story.**_

**_Many thanks to those that are reading; I hope you continue to be compelled to click on the next chapters. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed - if I haven't responded directly please know I've read and savored your kind words._**

* * *

Sam stares out into the dark night sky from the observation deck. Surrounded by telescopes she feels as close to at home as she is likely to get before Janet releases her from base. The quiet whir of the internal motors of the 'scopes soothe her. Though they are run by computers inside – by the _real _deep space telemetry folks – it feels like she is a part of something normal. Even though she can't see the screens showing the near and far reaches of space they are picking up, even though it feels like she really is just an observer of life these days, it is a comforting place for her to be. Though she does know one of those telescopes is trained on the part of the galaxy in which she'd been held prisoner for seventeen weeks.

Out in the fresh air she feels alive. After all those weeks under ground she figures it isn't any wonder. Also, this is apparently the one place on base she can truly be alone. She's no fool. She knows she's on camera. She knows Daniel, Teal'c or the Colonel one are hanging out in the control room surreptitiously watching her. But still, this is a private enough place. And she can have her own private thoughts.

Even if these days she's mostly just feeling sorry for herself.

A bolt of lightening flashes across the sky – close enough the hairs on her arms stand on end. She revels in the crackle that breathes life into the uncharacteristically breezeless air. A shadow falls across the deck and she knows tonight's observer – the Colonel – has stepped up close to the window. In her mind's eye she can see him; a pensive look will be on his face while his fingers are pressed against the glass.

She knows he wants to help. But she can't take the look of pity in his eyes. Not tonight.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"This is just about getting through the day, right?" she asks Natalie. Sam was surprised to find the woman in her office at 9:30 on a Tuesday night. Surprised, but a little glad.

"Right now, yes."

"So how do I get them to stop looking at me like I'm broken?"

"Who?"

Sam gestures helplessly towards the hallway. "…Them." She wishes she could articulate exactly whom but she feels like it would be too revealing. "All of them."

"Everyone on base? Everyone on base is looking at you like you're broken?"

Sam knows she can't say yes. She's not so narcissistic that even she believes everyone on base is tuned into her or her recent exploits. She figures a little truth might make this all easier. "My team."

Natalie doesn't answer right away so Sam tries for a little more truth. "Daniel. Colonel O'Neill."

"Not Teal'c?"

"No," Sam answers simply.

"Can I ask you a question?"

Sam's momentarily taken aback. She came with the questions tonight and so far she hasn't gotten any answers. "Um…okay."

"Why do you call Colonel O'Neill 'Colonel O'Neill'?"

Sam must be looking at Natalie like she's stupid because the doctor follows up with: "I just mean that I've worked with members of the military for a while now, and on this base specifically for a couple of weeks. I've noticed that most all the team members refer to each other by their first names. But Colonel O'Neill calls you 'Carter' and you call him 'Colonel O'Neill'. Why is that?

Sam sighs. "I don't really know."

"Do you ever call him Jack?"

Sam just shakes her head. When Natalie fails to continue Sam volunteers, "He used to call me Sam."

"Did something happen? Are you not as close as you used to be?"

"No," Sam says uncomfortably. "We're closer than we used to be."

"Does that make you uncomfortable? Is _he_ making you uncomfortable?"

Sam doesn't answer, but she does sit down on Natalie's couch.

"Sam?"

"Right now he's making me uncomfortable."

"Why?"

"Because…"

"Why?" Natalie presses.

"Because…"

"Because your relationship isn't purely professional?"

"No!" Sam exclaims appalled.

"No, your relationship _is_ purely professional or…"

"Yes, our relationship is purely profession and no, that's not why I'm uncomfortable."

"So, you're not friends?"

"Well…yes, I suppose we're friends. Sort of."

"Sort of?"

"It's not like we hang out together or anything."

"Why not?"

"He's my superior officer."

"I understand a lot of teams spend social time together."

Sam shrugs and Natalie nods. "So, why is he making you uncomfortable? You know, right now."

"Because…" this time Natalie lets Sam fill the space with her thoughts and, eventually, Sam continues, "because he keeps looking at me like I'm about to fall apart."

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Are you about to fall apart?"

Sam flops her head against the back of the couch and watches the ceiling lose focus through tears. "I don't know."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"I just feel so bad for her," Daniel says morosely into his coffee.

Jack shovels a massive spoonful of cereal into his mouth. "She doesn't need your pity, Daniel."

"Then she doesn't need yours, Jack."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's how you look at her. Like she's…"

"Like she's what?"

"Damaged."

"Well, she was."

"And now she'll get better."

"Not by herself, she won't," Jack mutters.

"She's got excellent medical care. Janet and Doctor Jordan seem to be doing a fine job."

"Yeah," Jack says noncommittally. It's not like he thinks the doctors are doing a _bad_ job. He just can't help but replay Doc Jordan's words every time he's in a room with Carter: _She's going to need you to be a friend long before she's going to need you to be her commanding officer._

The trouble is, he's not sure how to just be Carter's friend. Especially not after what happened at the festival on '432.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She's just about had it. She's not allowed to workout properly so she settles for the one exercise Janet's cleared her for – she heads to the pool. She might be most of the way put back together thanks to the use of a healing device and father, but about sixty laps in she's tired and she hurts. She stops at the end of the pool and folds her arms over the edge so she can catch her breath. It's then she notices Teal'c sitting on a bench a few yards away.

"I thought the Colonel was on Carter-duty tonight," she spits.

"I do not know what you mean, Major Carter."

"My baby sitter. Someone to make sure I don't throw in the towel and make a break for it."

"Why would you throw your towel, Major Carter?"

Sam just sighs. "Why are you here, Teal'c?"

"I thought perhaps you might like some company. I am feeling a bit unsettled myself."

This surprises her. "You are? Why?"

"I owe you an apology, Major Carter."

"What?"

Teal'c stands and crosses to the pool until he's towering above her. She can't help the flinch and he notices. "That is why." He crouches down in front of her and suddenly he doesn't seem quite so imposing. "I've made you frightened of me."

Guilt floods her. "No, Teal'c. You didn't."

"But you see, I did. I, too, left you in that place. And for that I will always be sorry."

Sam's not sure what to say. "Do you think I'm damaged, Teal'c?"

"I think you were injured gravely, Major Carter."

She nods. "Do you think I'll ever get better?"

"I think you become stronger each day."

"I'm not so sure."

"Then let me shoulder the burden of having confidence enough for the both of us." He reaches out a hand to her and helps her out of the pool.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jack doesn't quite know what to do when he's cornered in the locker room by a clueless Carter. She's clearly just out of the pool and thinks she's alone. Typically she would be at, he checks his watch, 11:30 on a Tuesday night.

He clears his throat when she hasn't noticed his presence after thirty seconds or so.

She whirls around and he tries not to notice how frightened she is. "Easy, Carter. Just me."

Her eyes remain wild for the span of several heartbeats. Finally, recognition seems to dawn. "Oh. Sorry, sir."

"It's fine, Carter." He holds up his hand and the binder he's grasping, "just grabbing my notebook."

Suddenly she must realize she's only half-clothed with sweatpants pulled over a wet one-piece bathing suit and she gathers a towel in front of her chest.

Sadness must flash in his eyes – and he is sad because Carter's never exactly been overly modest and he's not sure if it's because of what she's been through or because of that under-pressure/under-duress kiss they shared at the festival – because suddenly there is fire in hers.

"Stop," she hisses. "Just stop it."

He's shocked by her outburst. "What?"

"Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?" He probably sounds like an idiot, but he's flummoxed.

"Like I'm…"

_Half-naked, _the infuriating part of his brain supplies. But he's pretty sure he wasn't looking at her lecherously.

"Like you're what, Carter?"

"Like you…"

He takes a step toward her but stops when she takes a giant step back. He raises his hands in supplication. "Like I _what?"_

_"_Just don't look at me."

"Carter—"

"Don't see me like that. Don't see me like that anymore."

"Like what? Like you were when we found you?" He takes a deep breath and spits out his thoughts before he can sensor them and possibly make this worse than it already is. "Because that was the single most reassuring sight of my life. Carter, I thought we were going to collect a body and there you were. Alive. I'm never going to apologize for seeing you alive."

"You're still looking at me like I'm…"

"Alive?"

"No!" She breathes heavily for a moment. "No."

"Then how do I look at you?"

"Like there's something wrong with me."

"Carter—" he hedges and grasps the back of his neck. He looks down at the floor and when he looks back up, there's a hint of smile around her eyes.

"Okay, so maybe there's still something wrong with me."

"I'm not looking at you any differently."

"You are," she asserts.

"You know what I see when I look at you?"

"You see _her_."

And he just knows she's talking about the woman he pulled out of shackles in a goa'uld prison. "Yeah, I see her a little. Because she's _you_. For better or for worse, Carter, that's part of your story now."

"Well, would just stop looking at me like you feel sorry for me?"

He just shakes his head. "No can do."

Apparently she didn't expect him not to acquiesce because she just gapes.

"I am sorry for the fact that now you know what all that is actually like. I'd have traded places with you without hesitation."

He can see she knows that's true.

"But I don't pity you, Carter."

"It's the same thing."

"It's not. No one could ever pity someone as strong as you. You survived."

"I'm not sure about that yet."

"I am."


	7. Secondary Emotion: Sympathy

_**Author's Note: I'm behind on review replies but I wanted to thank the readers for your **_**_insightful thoughts about the story and what the characters are going through. This story is about Sam but it's also quite a bit about all of them. When bad things happen to our loved ones we're often touched in ways we could have never anticipated. Sometimes the things we say or do don't make much sense. But there's validity in emotion. There is truth in what we feel. I hope, in small part, to give voice to many of the angles of their situation._**

* * *

"Is it possible to feel sympathy for yourself? Or, is it only pity?" Sam asks Natalie a few days later.

"Well, by its very definition sympathy is an emotion you feel for others."

"Because I think I feel sympathy."

"For yourself?"

"For _her_. The me I was on that planet."

"Okay."

"Is that possible?"

"I think anything's possible. Especially if you're disassociating yourself from the person to whom those things happened on the planet."

"The colonel said I am her. That for better or worse, that's part of my story now."

"Do you agree?"

"I don't know. I think it would be easier to put all of that in a box, you know?"

"You'll have to deal with it eventually."

"And before I can go back to work."

"Yes."

"Right."Sam fiddles with a string on the couch. "How can I be so mad at them and feel sorry for them too?"

"Do you think the sympathy you're feeling might actually be directed at your team?"

"In part, at least."

"Why?"

"They don't seem to be handling all this very well."

"They all have their own emotions surrounding your capture and captivity. It's only natural."

"Yeah."

"You don't believe that?"

Sam struggles to find an appropriate answer. She's sure they're feeling some emotions, she's just not sure it has anything to do with her. And then she feels bad because it's certainly not all about her. "It's not all about me, is it?"

"What they're feeling?"

Sam nods.

"No. I don't imagine it is."

"Aren't you seeing them too?"

"Yes."

"So don't you _know_ whether or not it's all about me?"Natalie doesn't answer so Sam looks up at her. "Oh. Right. You can't tell me about their sessions."

"What's the difference between pity and sympathy," Sam asks after a few moments of contemplative silence.

"Sometimes, Sam, things just come down to connotation."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jack very nearly turns and leaves when he encounters Sam in the gym. Her back is to him, though, so he takes a moment to look her over. She's still frighteningly thin. He can see her shoulder blades and the vertebrae between them. When she shakes her hands down by her hips he notices how delicate her wrists are – is momentarily taken aback by the marks she retains from her captivity ringed around them. She's walking at a pretty good clip on a treadmill. She hates treadmills almost as much as she hates walking, but the report sitting on his desk says she's only been cleared for swimming and walking. And the walking is new today. Apparently she's had enough of the pool.

She still hasn't noticed his presence and, as he advances on her, he notices her eyes are squeezed tightly shut and she's got tiny earphones stuck in her ears. He draws closer still and suddenly realizes he can hear the music. It's slow but it has a driving beat and he sees she's walking in time to the music.

She's nearly vibrating with the effort it's taking to keep from turning up the treadmill and breaking into a run. He'd recognize that tension anywhere considering he's humming with it himself. As a matter of fact he'd come to this very place this very evening to punish his knees in ways Janet would berate him for endlessly.

She's still focused inwardly and he struggles with his desperate desire to flee and avoid her. His other choice – the less attractive one in many ways and yet far more enticing in others – is to climb aboard a machine near her and revel in her nearness for at least a little while.

Though he was fairly certain he'd been clear when he told her the feelings he had weren't pity he's also fairly certain she's been avoiding him as she doesn't really believe him. He'd meant what he said when he told her she was strong. She was so strong when she was trapped on that planet. He knows because she was alive when he got to her.

Suddenly he can recognize the song playing. Huh. He'd have never really pegged her as a Pink Floyd fan. But, he supposes, Wish You Were Here is probably a fitting song for her at the moment. And then he starts to worry about her ears if he can clearly hear her music over both the treadmill and her footfalls.

So he joins her, unseen, and runs along as a remnant from his heydays sings about lost souls.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Teal'c does not spend a lot of time thinking about what Major Carter must have been subjected to as a prisoner of Votan and his Jaffa. He knows precisely what she was made to do. Knows intimately how she was treated. He knows the tools used to break her. He's used them himself.

He does not know why she seems comfortable in his presence. Knows not why she's startled away from him fewer times than she's sought him out.

He thanks whatever powers might be part of the Universe that she finds some small comfort in his presence, though. But it hurts the soft inner part of him when she sits quietly on a pillow on his floor in meditation with tears streaming down her face. He is unsure how to be helpful. Is afraid of touching her when her eyes are closed. Is afraid, if he's honest, of touching her when her eyes are open.

He thinks she looks beautiful, if broken, in the candlelight. He has never before truly appreciated the beauty in survival. But he wonders sometimes how much of Major Carter actually survived her time on that planet.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"I feel like a virgin."

Natalie is momentarily taken aback by Sam's blunt and incongruous statement.

"In what way?"

"I know how things are supposed to feel; I just don't know where all the parts go."

"Knowing how things are supposed to feel is at least half the battle, isn't it?"

Sam shrugs.

"Besides me, who are you talking to?"

"There's not anyone I'm _not_ talking to."

"No, I mean about how you're feeling and what you went through."

"I can't talk about that with anyone."

"You talk about it with me."

"Not really."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She spends another evening half alone on the observation deck. The weather's turning cooler and she revels in the slight nip in the air as the sun sinks down past the horizon somewhere off her right shoulder. The trees in her immediate field of vision are an inky moss green superimposed over a grey blue dusky sky and she's suddenly struck by how much those colors look like she feels.

The bruises are mostly gone. It's been, after all, five weeks since her rescue and time and a half a dozen treatments with the healing device will do that. Her muscle tone is slowly returning. But her bones still ache. Her joints feel like they fit together strangely. Her skin still feels like something that's not quite her own.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"I don't know why I'm still coming here."

"Do you think you were unaffected by Major Carter's abduction?"

"Of course not."

"So you agree that there might be some fall out on your part."

Colonel O'Neill fidgets nervously in a chair.

"Okay, fine. Can you tell me about the events leading up to Major Carter's capture?" She watches as his eyes slam closed. "You don't have to relive it, Colonel. Just tell me what you're seeing."

His face contorts in pain. But he doesn't speak.

"Colonel? Open your eyes, please."

It takes many moments but he does.

"Can you tell me what you were seeing?"

"He pulled her out of my arms."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jack hands Daniel a beer and then sinks wearily onto the couch next to him.

"It doesn't feel right without her here."

"It'll be a while before she's allowed off base, Daniel."

"Why? Physically she's capable of caring for herself."

"Yeah. Well, her head's still not straight."

Daniel makes a noncommittal noise and Jack echoes it.

"I'm not sure I'm ever going to forgive myself, Jack. How do you do it? How do you look at her and not feel like you have to spend the rest of forever apologizing?"

"Who says I don't?"

"She hates it when I apologize to her."

"Probably because you haven't had a single real conversation with her since she's been back."

"I feel guilty. I'm atoning."

"It's not about you. It's about her. And she doesn't need to be reminded what she went through every time she sees one of us."

"You think we have to talk to make her remember, Jack? I'm pretty sure our faces are enough."

Jack takes a long pull off his beer.

Daniel continues, "I know I'll never forget the look on her face when we left her."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Your back looks good, Sam."

"Good."

"So do your wrists."

"Yeah."

"Your dad offered to come back if you're having any pain we haven't yet addressed."

"No."

"No pain, or no dad?"

"Both."

Janet pulls a stool up next to the bed Sam's sitting on. "I wish I knew what I could say to help."

"I wish I knew what to tell you to say."

"How's Doctor Jordan working out?"

"She's fine."

"No, really, Sam."

Sam hazards a smile. "Really, Jan. She's okay. I like her. She's better than Mackenzie."

"I'm not sure that's really saying much."

"She's helping."

"She can only help as much as you let her."

"What's that mean?"

"It means you get out of therapy exactly what you put into it. You want to get better, you have to level with her."

"Who says I'm not?"

Janet tries to think of an appropriate retort but settles for a no nonsense look that gets precisely the reaction she was looking for.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She submits to dinner with her team. She still doesn't like eating in front of other people. She's aware she's not eating enough to suit much of anybody. But if she doesn't spend at least a short amount of time with them every other day or so they each seek her out and force her into conversations she'd prefer not having. So, she consents to a meal and talk of things of little consequence.

It's not necessarily an easier thing to do, but it's proportionally easier than dealing with the conversations they'd rather be having. Besides, she's tired of telling Daniel not to apologize; tired of telling the colonel lies; tired of falling apart in front of Teal'c.

She doesn't want to chase them away. Not really. But she does want them to go away of their own volition. But they all look so sad all the time. And Daniel and the colonel look a little lost.

So, she submits to dinner with the team. It's not easy. But it's enough to get them through the next stretch and on to the next thing.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Natalie's notes are spread out across the coffee table as she makes notes into a handheld voice recorder. Erin is cooking something that smells like it might be a poor substitute for the dinner Natalie keeps missing.

"Major Carter continues to bury her true emotional reactions under case-typical reiterations of what she thinks she's supposed to be saying. We spend most of our sessions talking around problems. She doesn't trust me yet. But she doesn't trust anyone else either."

"You want my opinion?"

Natalie pushes the pause button on her recorder and looks up to see Erin leaning against the living room doorway. "Always."

"You should take a break. Eat something that doesn't come off a cafeteria tray or out of a vending machine."

Natalie sinks back into the couch with a smile. "That's good advice."

"I've got more." Erin's mouth turns up into a smirk and she advances to stand in front of Natalie.

"Shoot."

"If what you're doing isn't working, try something new."

"The vending machine food isn't that bad."

"Oh, it really is."


	8. Tertiary Emotion: Isolation

"How can I even possibly want to be alone?" Sam asks Natalie more than twenty minutes into their regularly scheduled session.

Natalie's been trained to go with the flow, but considering they'd just been talking about dealing with the frustrations of physical limitations it takes her a moment to catch the Major's train of thought. "You mean because you spent so much time alone while you were held captive?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I just feel like I shouldn't want to spend all this time alone. But I also feel like I'm going to climb the walls when anyone else is around. And then, sometimes, I want someone around, I just don't want him to talk. You know?"

"Him who, Sam?"

"What?"

"You said you don't want _him_ to talk. Who is _him_?"

Sam sputters for a moment and Natalie has to hide a smile. She's discovered Colonel O'Neill and Sam both have a tendency to talk about one another in the abstract. She's also discovered she was _very_ far off base when she accused them of being friends. And that Sam lied outright when she told Natalie that the relationship between Sam and her boss was strictly professional. She doesn't know the extent to which their relationship was _un_professional, but she harbored no doubts that it was, in fact, at least a _little_ unprofessional.

"Sam?"

"I meant _him_ in the abstract. All my teammates are men. And they're all always around. And talking."

"Even Teal'c?"

"These days? Yes."

"You know, I'm not going to let you get away with that for much longer."

"What?" Sam asks suspiciously.

"Lying to me when you're talking about Colonel O'Neill."

Sam sighs. "It's…I'm not sure I can really explain this to you, but it's complicated."

"I'm certain it is. These things always are."

"What things?"

"Relationships."

"We are most certainly _not_ in a relationship," Sam asserts.

And Natalie believes her. Beneath the outrage there is pain, confusion, and if she dares to find it, hope.

"Sam, there are many types of relationships. I'd assert you have at least some kind of relationship with Colonel O'Neill."

"Yes," Sam concedes. "A professional one."

"I get the impression he's not the sort of man that usually feels the need to fill silence."

Sam chuckles. "Believe it or not, you're wrong. He frequently speaks just to hear himself talk. He's always cracking jokes. Waxing irreverent."

"Do you suppose he does that for any particular reason?"

"He likes to make us laugh."

"And when silence is necessary?"

"I've seen him sit quietly for hours if we're in danger of being detected."

"So he's a man who talks with purpose?"

"Well, I guess so."

"And when he's around you these days, he just won't shut up?"

Sam grins a little. "Yeah."

"What does he talk about?"

"Mostly…"

"Sam?"

"Mostly, I think he's just trying to fix me."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Sam spends more time holed up in her quarters on base than she'd strictly like to. But her lab is off limits to her until she's cleared for duty. Janet still hasn't cleared her to leave the base and she's been back for six weeks. She's mostly healed thanks to her father's use of the healing device. But, she still doesn't eat well. Or sleep well. And she has a tendency to blank out and wander off. Even she agrees that Janet's probably right to keep her inside the mountain. Doesn't mean she has to like it.

But she's never really alone unless she's in her quarters. She still escapes to the observation deck as often as possible; one of her body guards is always present, though. Teal'c sits with her while she swims. And honestly, for that she's grateful after one particularly nasty run in with the wall of pool when she failed to execute a turn for being too distracted.Daniel talks incessantly and apologizes nearly every time he sees her. And the colonel has a strange fascination with wanting her to get a dog.

But in her quarters, she's blissfully alone. They'll leave her alone for up to eight hours at a time when they assume she's sleeping. But she never sleeps that long. Every sound jars her awake. Every random itch jerks her into a state of frightened consciousness. The dreams, though, they are what truly terrify her and make her afraid to go to sleep in the first place. So no, she doesn't really sleep anymore.

She lies to Janet about how much sleep she's actually getting. Because while Sam knows, intellectually anyway, that she's perfectly safe in Cheyenne Mountain, the thought of being in a chemically induced sleep from which she can't awaken absolutely terrifies her. She's gotten good with makeup. And her body has become pretty conditioned to sleeping in short bursts.

Sometimes she lets herself think about going through the gate and she just can't imagine a future where that will again be possible. And that makes her lose sleep too.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

It's been more than three months since Jack decided he was better off by himself. He was a wreck when Sam was gone and it seemed as if everyone pointed it out every chance they got. After the third rescue attempt failed even General Hammond agreed Jack was more likely to be a liability than an asset and benched him for future attempts.

And until Sam was rescued he spent a great deal of time sitting on his couch nursing a beer. Or, if he's honest, usually he nursed something much stronger. Even Daniel and Teal'c had learned better than to try to spend time around him.

And then, well, then they brought her home. All of them together – though he's still not sure exactly how he got put on that particular mission list after some of the spectacular fuck-ups he had to claim on those first rescue missions. And since then he's only been off base long enough to continue to collect her mail and tend her lawn.

He knows he's been better since she'd come home. Even he realizes the personnel on base seem more at ease around him than they had in months. And yet, he still feels a strong desire to be alone. If he can't be with her, that is. And he's with her as much as he can explain away. Though he's pretty sure he's not fooling a single damn soul anymore.

He doesn't want to anyway.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Daniel's shocked when Sam unleashes on him. All he did was apologize – and this time not even for leaving her on the planet (he learned his lesson after she nearly physically assaulted him the last time he'd ventured that particular apology). But apparently he's no longer allowed to apologize to her for anything at all – including spilling coffee on her.

"Damn it, Daniel! Could you just…not?! You're sorry, I get it. What do you want from me? Forgiveness?"

"Well," he flounders, "right now I just want to know if you need to go to the infirmary."

"I'm fine," she spits.

"But yeah," he continues boldly, "forgiveness would be nice."

"You spilled coffee on me. It's fine. I'll be fine," she says with disdain incongruous with her words.

"For the other thing."

She looks at him nonplussed.

"I want you to forgive me for the other thing."

"You want me to forgive you for the other thing? The other thing being leaving me on a planet as a captive of a Goa'uld? The other thing being leaving me to be beaten to within an inch of both my life and sanity? The _other thing _being leaving me in a place where life as I know it is over?"

He gapes at her. _Well,_ he thinks, _yes_. But he doesn't dare say it. But apparently his eyes just don't know how to shut the hell up.

"Fuck off, Daniel."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"He's got to leave me alone."

Natalie looks up as Sam bursts into her office.

"Colonel O'Neill?"

Sam shakes her head vehemently. "No. Daniel. If he apologizes to me one more time, I think I might actually kill him. It's not a euphemism. I'm picturing doing real mortal harm."

Natalie looks Sam over and sees an angry red welt on her forearm. "Sam, you okay?"

"I'm fine. My blood pressure's a little high and I'm concerned I'm just millimeters away from losing it, but yeah. I'm fine."

"You appear to have burned yourself." Natalie gestures at the Major's arm.

"Sonuvabitch." Sam acknowledges the burn for the first time apparently. She grips the unmarked skin just below the burn. "Ouch."

"I think you should go see Doctor Fraiser."

Sam nods.

"What happened?"

"Daniel spilled his coffee on me."

"And then he apologized?"

Sam flushes and then nods.

"And you took his head off?"

Sam nods again – sheepishly.

"Okay. I'll walk you to the infirmary. But I think it's time you had some real time to yourself. What do you think, Sam? Ready to go home?"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Sam's shocked to walk into her house and find it absolutely free of dust. To find her mail stacked neatly on the kitchen counter separated into bills, correspondence, and junk mail. She notices all the bills are open and having payment dates handwritten on them. In the colonel's handwriting. Well.

She looks back out the window, and no her memory isn't playing tricks on her – the grass is mowed. The bushes are pruned. There are no newspapers piled up on her porch.

She opens her fridge hopefully but it's empty. Damn. Her freezer turns up more of the same. She hadn't really thought this through. Oh, she's thrilled that Natalie secured her freedom. Well, her sort-of-freedom. She listens as the front door opens. _Here comes the caveat_, she thinks.

"C'mon in, Teal'c."

"I appreciate the opportunity to leave the SGC, Major Carter."

"You and me both, Teal'c."

"It appears they trust neither of us to be alone," he says with the hint of a smile he appears to reserve for her.

"Joke's on them, letting us out alone together then, isn't it?"

"How can we be alone if we are together?"

"How indeed?"Sure, she's grateful to be off base. And sure, she's grateful to be home. But all she really wants is to be alone. Truthfully, Teal'c was probably the best option if someone had to come with her. At least he gives her some space. At least he has perfected the art of silence. And, of all of them, he is, surprisingly, the one she felt the least anger towards.

She can't even begin to explain how it is the Jaffa of the group that keeps her most at east but, alas, it is true. Perhaps because, even though he's as much a part of her team as Jack and Daniel, he just doesn't fill a space like they do. He can blend in with the background. When he's around, sometimes she can still pretend like she's alone.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Sam comes awake gasping violently. Damn it. She hadn't meant to fall asleep at all. The television's on but the sounds been all but muted. A light throw blanket that is usually folded over the back of the couch is now spread over her and damp with sweat. A low light burns from somewhere in the direction of the kitchen or dining room. And the smell of Teal'c's candles wafts gently down the hall.

"Teal'c?" She tries but the name sticks in her throat. She clears her throat and tries again. "Teal'c?"

He appears like an apparition. "Do you require assistance, Major Carter?"

"How long have I been asleep?" She flounders for a question since she's not quite sure why she called him.

His eyes flicker towards the VCR. "Approximately three hours."

"Approximately three hours," she mutters.

He must take that as a rebuke for his inaccuracy because he answers back. "Two hours and fifty three minutes."

She shakes her head and waves him off. "Which day is this?"

"The second day, Major Carter."

She relaxes back into the couch. She's been home two days. The day after tomorrow she'll have to report back for a med eval. But in the meantime she's home free, so to speak.

"What time is it?" she asks from beneath the hand she's splayed over her face.

"Two-thirty a.m."

"I'm hungry. You hungry?"

"I believe Pronto Pizza delivers at this time."

"Great. Perfect."

Teal'c turns towards her cordless phone.

"Hey, just no pineapple, okay?"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jack pulls up into Carter's driveway and fiddles with the radio dials to kill time. Bra'tac's untimely arrival at the SGC means Teal'c's no longer on Carter-duty. And since they all decided it would probably be best if Daniel wasn't left alone with Sam, and since Janet is dealing with a particularly nasty alien fungus that came home with SG-4, Jack was nominated to run interference. At least this way Sam doesn't have to give up her hard won evening at home.

Teal'c emerges from the house and Jack gets out of the truck leaving it running for the big guy.

"O'Neill."

"Hiya, Teal'c." Jack shuffles unsurely in the driveway.

"Major Carter is expecting you."

"Yeah."

"I shall return to relieve you as soon as I can. However, if I have not returned, Major Carter's doctor's appointment is at nine o'clock."

"Thanks, Teal'c. I got it."

"She is…"

And when Teal'c doesn't finish his sentence Jack's worried. Teal'c's a lot of things but pensive is never one of them. "She's what?"

"Major Carter does not rest with ease."

Jack sighs and shoots his gaze towards where the sun in dipping past the horizon. "I figured."

"She dreams."

"Dreams?"

"I believe she suffers from night terrors."

"Yeah, well, who doesn't?"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The first few hours are tense and uncomfortable. She wanders around and seems to avoid him at all costs. And then, they encounter each other in the hallway as he is leaving the bathroom and she her bedroom.

They stare at each other for a full minute. He watches as she regains control of her breathing. "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you."

She shrugs. "Most things do these days, sir."

"We haven't really talked since you've been back."

She sighs heavily. "Sir, it seems like all I've done since I got back was talk."

"I…" he huffs, grasps at the back of his neck and makes a thorough study of the grain on her hardwood floor. "Aw, fuck, Sam." He meets her eyes guiltily then leans heavily against the wall. "Look, it might piss you off, but I've gotta tell you I'm sorry."

She deflates. "Me too."

"What? Why?"

She just shakes her head. Then she bites her lip and it undoes him.

"God, you've got nothing to be sorry for. You didn't do anything wrong."

"It all happened because we…"

"No, it didn't. It would have happened anyway. And we didn't…you know… just because we…"

"What?"

He can't answer. Apparently she can't either.

"I'm sorry I couldn't get to you," he finally supplies when it seems like there's no safe avenue of conversation on the previous topic.

"Me too."

"I'm sorry you were alone."

"Me too."

"I'm sorry those things happened to you," and he's startled to find she's gone blurry through tears.

And when she say, "me too," he can hear thick tears in her voice.

"I'm sorry it wasn't me."

And he waits, but she doesn't say it.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"I was completely alone there. There weren't any other prisoners," Sam volunteers forty minutes into an intense session.

Natalie nods and waits for Sam to continue.

"The colonel told me he's sorry he wasn't the one who was taken."

"Do you believe him?"

"Yes."

"Are you sorry it wasn't him?"

"No," Sam breathes as if horrified by the very thought.

"Why not?"

"He's…look, I'm not supposed to know this, and I really shouldn't be telling you, but…the things that were done to me…"

"Were done to him, too, when he was in the Iraqi prison."

Sam's eyes snap up to meet Natalie's. "You know?"

"I do." Natalie buys a moment by taking a sip of her coffee. "So, he's been through what you've been through. He knows how hard it is, how awful, and he still tells you he'd have preferred it was him."

"Yeah."

"How does that make you feel?"

"Like he's a fool."

Moments stretch out into long breaths before Sam continues. "It makes me feel like maybe I'm not so alone."


	9. Secondary Emotion: Neglect

"It's my fault, you know." Colonel O'Neill fiddles with a decorative rock that usually sits on Natalie's side table. "I mean, they tell you, when some missions go fubar that it's not anyone's fault. Sometimes these things just happen. But this one? This one was my fault."

"Why?"

"Because I know not to trust the festivals or the priests that run them. Because I know nine times out of ten some sex crazed committee is going to want Carter for nefarious purposes. Because I'm supposed to have a sixth sense about these situations. And mostly because anything that starts with Daniel telling me I'd better kiss Carter and kiss her fast is just too damn good to be true."

"Daniel told you to kiss Sam?"

"It's these…see, Carter shows up on a planet, right? And I'm telling you, dollars to donuts, if there's a festival it's going to be some sort of fertility rite and some priest is tying her up or stripping her down because strangers don't just show up on these planets. And, when they do, they don't ever look like Carter, right?"

"Okay."

"So a long time ago we just discovered it was easier to tell them she was hooked up with one of us guys. Usually whichever one was standing closest to her at the moment. But the Votani… this wasn't just any festival. And, as it turns out, it wasn't a fertility thing."

"But Daniel told you to kiss Sam?"

"It should have…Votan would have considered her unclean. He wouldn't have wanted her. Not for himself or for his Jaffa."

"But he took her anyway."

"He did."

"Why?"

"Because, as it happens, kissing her wasn't enough."

"And you didn't know?"

"No, we didn't know. Daniel's usually translating on the fly and there's not any time for second guesses, you know?"

"And this time he translated wrong?"

"Yeah."

"Then what?"

"Then Votan's first prime pulled her out of my arms."

"She was literally taken _from you_."

"Yeah."

"And so you feel like it's your fault."

"It is."

"An argument could be made that it's Daniel's fault."

"Hey, lady," he asserts, "you try decoding alien languages week after week and see how you do."

Natalie raises her hands in supplication. "I'm not saying _I_ blame Daniel."

"Well, neither do I."

"But you blame yourself? Because they pulled her away from you?"

"Yes."

"And you were supposed to…what? Overpower a contingent of Jaffa warriors?"

"We've done it before."

"So what was different about this time?"

"I don't know, doc."

Natalie's pretty sure he knows precisely what was different about that time, but she decides, for the moment, this is enough.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Sam breathes in the stale air of her lab. She'd forgotten how musty it could get with disuse. She half expected to see a thin layer of dust covering everything considering how long it had been since she'd been inside, but she supposes the others had come in from time to time. She notices things here and there but can't tell if everything is precisely where she'd left it six months before.

Six months. It seems like a lifetime ago. Back when things made sense. When she knew what she'd be doing from one day to the next – even if she wasn't sure which world she might be doing it on. Now she can't say with any sort of certainty that she'll even be waking up the next day. It's not that she's suicidal, really. She just can't seem to trust in implied absolutes anymore.

For instance, she had always been completely, one hundred percent certain that her team would never leave her behind.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"How're you feeling today, Sam?"

"About like you'd suspect, I suppose."

Natalie can't help but smile. Sam is very good at attempting to evade questions. She would answer, but not really. And Natalie congratulates herself on finally recognizing the signs in this particular patient. Never mind it was the patient herself who'd admitted to being evasive in the first place. Natalie will take whatever small victories she can.

"Why don't you tell me anyway? You've been off base for the last several days. How was that?"

"It was fine. Teal'c stayed with me."

"And how was that?"

"Teal'c's a great house guest."

Natalie sighs, this is going to be like pulling teeth. She can tell already. Some days Sam is more receptive to the therapy. Today is not one of those days. "What was it like going home?"

"Fine," Sam says slowly as if she can't understand why Natalie is harping on such a non-issue.

"It was the first time you'd been home in about six months, right?"

"Yes."

"What did you do? Sleep? Clean your house? Catch up on TV?"

"I…" Sam starts and then seems to reassess her tactics. "No. My house was clean when I got there."

"It was?" Now, that does surprise Natalie. She expected dust. Live organisms in the fridge. A yard gone to weed and seed. "Had someone kept it up for you?"

"Apparently so."

"Anything else strange at home?"

"My bills were paid."

"Yeah? Can you sign me up for that?"

Sam cracks a smile. "You can't have one without the other, you know?"

Natalie sobers. "Do you think good only comes with bad, Sam?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you got kidnapped and tortured but on the flip side you came home to a clean house and paid bills. Is that the way it works?"

"Sometimes, apparently."

"It's nice when people do things for you, even when you don't know those things are being done. It makes you feel…"

Sam studies Natalie until it becomes apparent Natalie expects her to fill in the blank. "I don't know how that made me feel."

"Well, it was nice of whoever did it."

"I…" Sam trails off again. She fidgets and fiddles.

"Sam?"

"I think it was the colonel."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"So what?" Daniel asks around a mouthful of bagel. "I'm not allowed to be alone with her anymore?"

"How good an idea do you think that would be?"

"Jeez, Jack, it's not like I'm trying to make things harder on her."

"I know."

"I love her."

Jack raises an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Of course." He pauses. Takes a slug of coffee. "And I really am sorry."

"Damn it, Daniel, we're all sorry. But you don't see me and Teal'c following her around apologizing to her every time we open our mouths."

"Well," he responds hotly, "maybe you should."

"You wanna rethink that?"

Daniel has the good graces to look contrite. "We're never going to be the same again, are we?"

"Stranger things have happened," Jack replies on a shrug.

"Do you think she knows?"

Jack considers all Daniel's thoughts and figures he doesn't really need clarification. "Yeah, Daniel. She knows."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"I'm beginning to wonder if I kept you here too long."

"What?" Sam doesn't temper the confusion that laces her voice.

"I can't help but think keeping you here so long is making it tougher for you to be home."

"Being home was fine, Janet."

"Teal'c said you don't really sleep."

"Not sleeping is a hard habit to break."

"Did you…" Janet trails of with a worried look in her eyes.

And then Sam just knows. "I don't really want to talk about it."

"But you know you can talk to me. If you ever needed to talk about it. Right?"

"Janet, I swear to anything out there that might be holy, I'm not really talking to anyone about it."

"Doctor Jordan just wants to help you."

"This isn't something anyone can really help, you know?"

"Because we haven't been there?"

"No!" Sam exclaims. And then she thinks about it a little. Is that what has been holding her back? Does she think her friends can't sympathize because they can't empathize? Maybe. Maybe not. She decides thee-quarters honesty will do for her best friend. "Sometimes I just really want to not be left alone."

Janet looks at her with confusion. Sam figures that fits.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He really tried to keep from arranging it this way, but here he is again – home with Carter. None of the docs want her on her own. She doesn't want anyone around but she can't stand being alone. He doesn't really know how to help her. Hell, he doesn't even really know how to talk to her anymore.

He sits with her on the couch and they stare at a muted television show he knows he couldn't answer a single question about. He's pretty sure she couldn't either.

"Janet wants me to sleep more," she finally volunteers after about forty-five minutes of dead silence.

He swallows deeply and wishes he had the right words. But hell, it's Sam. She knows he's never had the right words. Somehow they'll muddle through. "She could give you something."

Sam just shakes her head.

He understands. "It can take a while. You know, to…uh… trust enough."

"There's no one I trust more than you guys. I couldn't even sleep when Teal'c was here. Not really."

"No one you trust more than us? Sam, that's a sad state of affairs since you don't even trust us much these days."

She looks at him stricken.

"Not that we deserve a whole lot of trust," he mutters.

"I don't know how to not be hurt. And I don't know how to not hurt you guys about this."

"We're big boys, Carter. We can handle it."

"Yes, sir," she says and ducks her head to hide a small smile.

"It's going to take a while," he reiterates. "But I can stay tonight."

She nods. "Okay."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She wanders around her house in the near pitch black. The moon is a little sliver in the sky and she hasn't been able to find the nightlights the colonel apparently unplugged in her absence.

He must be exhausted. She's paced past him several times and he hasn't so much as flinched. She half wants him awake with her and is half glad she's alone. Though at least he doesn't mind the quiet. She hasn't felt much need to fill silence, so she's glad.

But after close to an hour of fighting back licks of terror she decides she doesn't really want to be alone in her dark house. She stops her circuit of the house in front of the couch. Still he lays there – his breaths deep and even. He doesn't move.

So of course he scares the shit out of her when he says, "I'm not sure if I should be encouraged that you've stopped walking or if I should be concerned for my safety." He pops one eye open. "You're not armed are you, Carter?"

"No, sir."

He must hear the tremor in her voice because he pushes himself into a sitting position. She wants him to invite her to sit with him. But she can't ask and he can't read minds and so there they are – staring at one another.

"You okay?"

"I don't know."

"You're safe here."

"I know."

"Do you? Do you really?"

She shrugs.

He takes a deep breath. "Sometimes it was noises. Sometimes it was quiet. Sometimes it was having people around and sometimes it was having no one around. Sometimes I needed to have my sidearm right next to me and sometimes that was a very bad idea."

She considers him carefully and decides he's sharing something important with her. So she sits down in the armchair off to one side of the couch he'd been sleeping on.

"I had Sara, you know? There was someone there who wanted me to be okay. And sometimes that was the absolute wrong thing. But Sam, it's what ultimately saved me."

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"You've spent the better part of your life alone. You spent a good part of the time you weren't alone with people who weren't giving you what you needed." He shrugs. "After that sometimes it's hard to accept that there's something other than neglect out there."

"Yes, sir."

"I want you to be okay."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Tell me something about your time in the cell, Sam," Natalie presses. It's been nine weeks since Sam's return and Natalie still only knows the bare bones that were part of the medical and field reports.

"I was always alone. Until I wasn't."

Natalie waits for Sam to volunteer more information but she doesn't. "What was it like when you were alone?"

"Painful."

"And when you weren't?"

"More painful."

Yeah. Natalie bites her lip. "What's it like when you're alone now?"

"I'm never really alone, am I?"

"Fair enough. And how is it when you're not alone?"

"I'm always alone, Natalie."


	10. Tertiary Emotion: Shame

_**Author's Note: Things are starting to get a little more uncomfortable now and I know some of you have noticed. This chapter is worse. It was worse to write. It was worse to edit. I imagine it'll be worse to read. But stick with me, there will be a light at the end of the tunnel.**_

_**Many thanks to all who take time out of your busy days to read. I know you have lots of things you can do with your time and I'm honored you'll share some of that time with me.**_

* * *

"I can't seem to shower often enough to not feel…"

"Feel what, Sam?"

"Used up. Maybe. Dirty? That sounds so cliché."

"There is a reason things become cliché."

"Does that mean you think I am?"

"Dirty?"

Sam just nods.

"No. I don't think that."

"Do you think other people think that?"

"Which other people?"

"Any of the other people. People on base."

"I think anyone who matters doesn't think you're dirty."

"I should have fought harder."

"You didn't fight the Jaffa?"

"I did. At first. When I could."

"So there came a point in time when you couldn't fight anymore? Physically?"

"I was strung up. From shackles. You know, around my wrists? They hung me there. After a while my arms and shoulders hurt pretty badly."

"And it would get hard to breathe," Natalie supplies.

"Yeah. After a while."

"How long?"

"It would take a while. My toes could touch the floor."

Natalie tries to suppress a gasp. It's one thing to know a person sitting in front of you was tortured. It's quite another to have a very clear picture painted.

"Sam, you fought while you could, right?"

Sam seems to consider the question for an inordinate amount of time and finally settles on, "Yes."

"And what would have happened if you'd fought harder? Longer?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, I think you do."

"Natalie—"

"No, Sam. I want you to say it out loud. What would have happened if you'd fought that Jaffa longer than you did?"

"I think he'd have killed me."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jack finds himself sitting on the dewy ground in Carter's back yard during another ill-advised Carter-sitting session. Unfortunately, on this night she seems compelled to talk and so far she's said a lot of things that make him damned uncomfortable.

"It's my fault, a lot of it," she finally says in a way that makes his heart break just a little.

"No, Carter. None of it was your fault."

"I mean what happened to me while I was in the cell."

"Me too."

"Sir, please."

"Please nothing, Carter. It. Wasn't. Your. Fault. Period. Not a single bit of it."

"What do you think would have happened to me if I'd have fought harder? Do you still think he'd have—"

"Raped you?" Jack grinds out. All these weeks he's resisted saying that word but she's come to bandying it about in a way that makes him so uncomfortable his only choice is to throw it back at her. "You think he'd have _not_ raped you if you'd have fought him harder? Jesus Christ, Carter."

"I don't know. Maybe it would have happened fewer times."

"And maybe you'd be dead."

"Better dead than this."

He sucks in a breath. "Please don't say things like that," he says on a shaky exhale.

"Even if it's true? I've never known you to shy away from truth, sir."

"There's nothing true about you being better off dead."

She starts to open her mouth to speak but he's so angry he can't listen to whatever she's about to say so he gets up and storms into her house making sure to slam the door behind him.

A couple hours later he's pretending to be asleep on the couch when she comes in. She stops in the living room and he can feel her penetrating gaze.

"I'm better off dead than being a woman nobody can ever touch."

And finally he gets it. He waits until she's about to cross the threshold between the living room and the hallway. "You're not dirty, Sam. And there's nothing anybody could ever do to you to make you undesirable."

Her breath catches audibly and he suddenly wonders if he's gone too far. But damn it, some things just need to be said. He can practically feel her weighing the ramifications of her responses and doesn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved when her only answer is, "Thank you, sir."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Daniel."

Daniel looks up from the photographs of ancient text SG-4 brought back from their last mission and is shocked to see Sam fidgeting in his doorway. "Sam."

"Can I…" she gestures helplessly into his office.

He sits back in his chair and wonders if Jack is going to kick his ass if he admits her without a chaperone. "Does anyone know you're here?"

She tilts her head with curiosity. "No?"

"I'm not supposed to be alone with you."

She blushes.

He pushes his glasses further up on his nose.

And they're at an impasse.

"Can I come in anyway?" she finally asks.

"Yeah," he says nervously. "Sure. You wanna sit? Just shove that stuff onto the floor."

She moves to do just that.

"Carefully!" he squeaks. "I'll do it. I'll do it." And suddenly he's rushing around his desk and rescuing stacks of books and papers from a desperate crash onto the concrete floor.

"I wasn't actually going to shove them," she says.

He looks up in shock. There's a smile playing about her mouth. Some sparkle is in her eyes. And he can't stop himself from gathering her into a crushing hug. She stiffens slightly in his arms, but she doesn't balk. "God," he exhales reverently, "I've really missed you."

"I've missed you, too," she says into his shoulder. "I'm really sorry."

He chuckles. "I think that phrase is taboo, Sam."

She leans back in his embrace and punches him in the shoulder lightly. "I'm trying to apologize here."

"You don't have anything to apologize for. If anything I should apo—"

"Stop," she says with a laugh. "Let's just call those words off limits for the time being, okay?"

"Yeah," he says before pulling her tight against his chest again.

They must stand that way for several minutes, but he's loathe to let her go. Besides, he gets the impression she's got something on her mind. He'll wait her out. He's good at that. And then, when she does speak, she gouges out his heart.

"How can you touch me? Knowing what was done to me?"

He takes a moment to collect his thoughts. "Is that what this is about?" He tightens his arms around her.

"Aren't you worried you'll get…"

"Get what?"

"I'm…"

"You're…"

She pulls back from him and places a warm palm on his cheek and meets his eye with a strength he didn't know she had repossessed. "Aren't you worried I'm contagious?"

"Sam, last time I heard, torture wasn't catching."

"Do you think I'm ruined now?"

"Oh, Sam. You're so far above being ruined."

He tries not to cry, but he's not sure how anybody could _not_ cry when faced with that look in her eyes.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Why me?" she finally gets up the nerve to ask Teal'c.

"I do not understand the question, Major Carter."

"There were thousands of Vontani women on that planet. Women who had been groomed all their lives to serve Votan. Women who would have found honor in that duty. So, why me?"

"You are a rare and precious find, Major Carter. Even Votan would be drawn to that."

"I'm not so rare and precious anymore," she says with what she hopes is a careless shrug. She's pretty sure she's not fooling any of the guys at this point. And despite all the positive feedback she can't quite bring herself to believe them.

"You believe you are…what is the phrase the Tau'ri use in this situation? Damaged merchandise?"

She can't help a tiny grin. "Damaged goods, Teal'c."

He reaches out a gentle hand to lift her eyes to his. "Do you believe you are damaged goods, Major Carter?"

She shrugs and tries to turn her face away but he presses his large warm palm from temple to jaw and holds her gaze. His dark eyes penetrate into her soul and she can't help the rush of tears or the sob that bursts forth from her chest. "Yes."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Perhaps something should be done about Major Carter," Teal'c decrees over crappy frozen yogurt in the commissary.

Jack rolls his eyes. "About what, precisely, Teal'c?"

"She seems to think we find her substandard."

"I don't think she's feeling substandard," Daniel says wryly.

"She doesn't feel pretty," Jack says around a mouthful.

"Uh, that's simplifying the issue, don't you think, Jack."

Jack just shrugs.

"I'm not sure Sam's the sort of woman who's ever felt pretty."

Jack scoffs. "Carter? No way."

"She's not exactly a girly girl," Daniel points out.

"Sure she is. She's got all those flow-y…things," he gesticulates.

"Skirts?"

"Yeah. With, you know," he rolls a hand through the air, "flowers and stuff on 'em."

"Um, okay. Jack, you're fired."

"From what?"

"Making Sam feel pretty duty."

"I didn't know that department was hiring," he mutters.

"The problem is not that Major Carter doubts her looks. I believe she knows she is beautiful, Daniel Jackson."

Jack's eyes fly to Teal'c's face. Huh. He didn't know the big guy noticed things like that.

Daniel starts to object but Jack interjects, "Eh, he's right."

"You're the one who said she doesn't feel pretty," Daniel points out less than helpfully.

"I may have oversimplified matters a little."

"You think?"

"Major Carter feels unclean due to the way she was used by the Jaffa. Do Tau'ri women find intercourse unpalatable?"

"They do when it's forced on 'em, Teal'c. Jeez." Jack shoves his frozen yogurt away in disgust. "What, women like to be raped on Chulak?"

"I was merely making a point, O'Neill."

"Oh." Jack takes a few breaths and tries to simmer down.

"I don't think Sam had an abundant sex life before…"

"Do we really need to speculate on Carter's sex life, guys?"

"Sorry, Jack."

"Hey, you don't think she was a…"

"A what?" Jack asks when it becomes apparent Daniel isn't going to continue.

"You know…inexperienced."

"Oh for crying out loud!" Jack exclaims. "She's in her thirties. She was engaged. Don't try to romanticize this, Daniel. She had a full and active sex life before all this happened and she'll have one again. One day."

"Since when are you so comfortable talking about sex?"

"Since when wasn't I?"

"I don't know. I guess I just always assumed…"

"Daniel, I'm well past forty. I was married. I've had sex. This isn't exactly a taboo subject.

"Well, maybe you should talk to Sam then."

_Oh, for crying out loud_. Yep. He walked right into that one.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Look, I was nominated for this. But if you don't feel comfortable talking to me about it, I understand." It took him two weeks to work up the courage to say those words but he's glad he finally did. Except, Sam's looking at him like he's got two heads.

"Nominated for what?"

Oh. Damn. Apparently he skipped the important part. How, precisely, to ease into this? "Okay, it's come to our attention that you're feeling a little less than…"

"Less than…"

He rolls his eyes then soldiers on. "Desirable. Less than desirable these days."

She flushes a brilliant pink and he feels a little bad for embarrassing her. "Would you rather talk to Natalie about this?" Maybe she'd rather talk to a woman. He doesn't know. But he figures sometimes years of friendship trump even a female perspective.

"I'd rather not talk about this at all," she counters.

"Okay. Yeah. I get that."

She looks relieved.

"But I think we should talk about it anyway."

She sighs. "Really, sir?"

"Really."

"Don't you think this is a little…inappropriate?"

"Sam, you're the one that brought it up," he says on an aggrieved sigh.

"I did not."

"Maybe not directly. But you've mentioned feeling untouchable. How, precisely, were we meant to take that?"

"I don't know!" she huffs. "In a non-sexual way."

"But what happened to you was sexual."

"And sometimes it was just garden variety torture, sir," she spits.

"But I'm guessing it's not the beatings that have you feeling like you're…what's the word you used with Daniel? Contagious?"

She groans. "That's not exactly what I meant. I'm not…I don't have…"

"I know, Carter. I see your med evals."

"Then why are we having this conversation?"

"Because just because your physicals are coming back clean doesn't mean your…mentals…are."

She chuckles. "I'm not sure that's actually a thing."

"Oh, I can assure you it is."

"Sir…"

"You're desirable, Sam. What they did to you…it didn't change that. It couldn't. You're more than just that one part of you that was physically violated."

"I was mentally violated, too," she finally says even after he's sure she doesn't have anything to say.

"I don't doubt that." He rakes a hand through his hair. "I _know_ that," he amends. "I've been there. You think I didn't question what I could offer my wife after spending weeks with all manner of hell shoved up my ass? When something like that can cause a physical reaction any man would try to deny?"

She looks at him, shocked, he's sure, that he'd share something so personal. "You know how hard it was to make love to my wife after some Iraqi bastard was able to make me come by doing things to me I'd never want in a million years?"

She almost reaches for him but detours to pick imaginary lint of a throw pillow. "I can't imagine what that must have been like."

"Yeah, you can. Because it happened to you."

"Not like that. I didn't…I never…"

"Say it out loud, Sam."

"I never got any pleasure out of what they did to me."

"I'm not saying you did. I didn't get any pleasure out of what they did to me either. But they physiological reactions don't always stop."

"Sometimes they thought I was enjoying it," she says meekly.

He nods. "Yeah."

"But I didn't. I swear, I didn't." She looks at him like she's so lost and he thinks she probably is.

"I know."

"How could you know?"

"Because I believe what you're telling me. And you're not dirty, Sam. Not at all. Even if had happened a hundred more times than it did."

"Sometimes when he'd beat me…"

His heart clenches as fat tears roll down her cheeks. "Sometimes it would hurt so bad you'd wish he'd just fuck you instead."

Her eyes slip closed and she bites her lip. "I _begged_ him."


	11. Tertiary Emotion: Depression

_**Author's Note: I took a few days off. Sorry you had to wait for the continuation of the story, but the break did me good. As you'll likely be able to tell by the length of this chapter alone. It's also a **_**little**_** less angsty. I think Sam and Jack needed a bit of a break.**_

_**There's some housekeeping in this chapter rather than just scenes that illustrate the current emotion. It was time to check in with everyone. We'll be back to the regularly scheduled programming on Monday.**_

* * *

She can't help but catch her own eye in the mirror. Oh, she tries not to. But as she holds a towel around her with one hand and wipes steam off the mirror with the other it just…happens. And before she's conscious of any of it, before she even knows she is having a bad day, a sob bursts forth from her chest and tears course down her cheeks.

It isn't until she hears a soft knock at the door that she remembers she isn't alone. It was the colonel again last night. "Carter?" His soft voice is barely any competition for the rap of his knuckles against the cheap particle board door she's been meaning to replace. She tries to focus on details that aren't Jack O'Neill. Like how to sob silently – a skill she never really perfected.

She hears the knob start to turn and then before she's ready she can meet his eyes in the mirror. His eyes flicker over her – both her form and her reflection – so very quickly that he's turned on his heel before she's able to exhale the sudden breath she'd sucked in when he appeared. Moments later he appears with her bathrobe; he holds it for her as she threads her arms into the sleeves. Once she's tied the belt they both watch as the towel falls to the floor. He clears his throat uncomfortably. She toes the terry cloth and they just take a moment to breathe the same air.

"This part stops?" she asks.

"Yeah," he nods sagely.

"Okay."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She runs now. She'd never been as thankful to be cleared for a fitness regimen as she had been this time. And she thunders along. Too fast, really, to be sustainable for a person who hasn't exactly been allowed to physically overexert herself lately. And she's looking forward to the collapse after the workout with an almost deranged level of glee. She's breathing far too hard. Her chest is tight. Her lungs burn. Her _calves_ burn and she can feel splints on her shins. The arches of her feet don't seem to fit properly against the supports in her shoes. She's affixed the mp3 player to her arm a little too tightly. But it doesn't matter because, well, the pain's a little good. It's a little bit okay. It feels like something real and is a little welcomed because, more than anything, it isn't tears. It won't be. These minor pains will never again be enough to make her cry. And that makes her feel a little powerful. And maybe a little sad, too.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He steps out onto the observation deck and can't help but feel a little guilty. He feels like this is _her_ place. She should get to keep it. Shouldn't have to worry about him taking up her space. But after the days – hell, after the weeks and months – they've been having, sometimes he just needs the crisp Colorado air to reach inside him and pull out the waste that's left behind in the wake of just trying to hold them all together. It's days like this he wishes he still smoked. Something about the cool air, seeing his breath fog in front of him, leaning on a cold metal railing, desperately needing something to do with his hands…

She's either crying or she's too quiet. She eats too little. Drinks just a little too much – coffee or alcohol, doesn't seem to matter to her which. She talks too little. Sleeps too little. And spends too much time staring off into the distance at, what he imagines, must be prettier places than her mind.

The docs both tell him the best thing he could do is just be around. Listen. But the truth is, he can't be around as much as he wants to be. He has a job to do and now that SG-1 is back on rotation, well, he's going to be around even less. Who will stay with her, he wonders, while he and Teal'c and Daniel are off world? Maybe Janet will insist Sam spend the night at her place and bury herself in the distraction that is Cassandra. Maybe she'll be required to stay in her quarters. That'd probably be it. She doesn't really have anywhere else to go or anyone to go there with, does she?

Jack looks down at his hands, wishes again he could will a cigarette into them. Then he pushes off the railing and moves back into the warmth of the SGC feeling like he has failed.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"You know they're going off world today?"

Natalie is aware SG-1 will be visiting another planet. She's also aware the three men are struggling with the idea of leaving Sam behind. "Yes. It's supposed to be an…easy one…right?"

Sam smiles and nods. "Standard recon mission. Possible meet and greet. Kid stuff." But her smile falters.

"Your mission to Votan was standard recon. Right?"

"PX6-432 wasn't at all what it was supposed to be."

"But, these things happen sometimes, right? You think a planet will be safe and then it isn't? That's pretty much when you all have been dealing with since the beginning."

Sam looks at Natalie with distrust. "Yeah, I suppose so."

"Are you worried something bad is going to happen to them while they're gone?"

"There's always some degree of worry when a team is off world."

"And what degree of worry do you have for your team?"

"A normal amount."

"You're sure?"

"Yes," Sam says stubbornly.

"So why are you here today?"

Sam meets Natalie's eyes sharply. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean you don't have a regular session scheduled, you sat here for five minutes drinking coffee before you said a single word, and when you did speak you mentioned your team going off world. But you're not overly worried about. So, I'll ask again, why are you here?"

Sam sits back into the couch with a heavy sigh. "I thought you said I could come any time."

Natalie nods. "I did. I meant it."

"So, do I really need a reason?"

"I don't think you'll be surprised to find that we do everything for a reason, Sam. I'm just curious to know what brought you here today."

Sam fiddles with a button on the cuff of her jacket. Kills a little time. Visibly collects her thoughts. "I've been crying. A lot. And I was wondering if there's anything you can do about that."

"You don't want to cry?"

"Not all the time! And maybe not in front of the guys?"

"You just crying, Sam? Or is it more than that?"

"Usually I just cry."

"And during the unusual times?"

"Yes. I break down."

"What seems to be different about those unusual times?"

Sam thinks it over and Natalie can tell it's the first time she's done so. She watches as a light catches behind Sam's eyes. "It's…well, it seems like…"

"Go ahead. Say it out loud." Natalie's not sure what the revelation will be but she'd put money on it that it's going to be good.

"It seems like it's only when just the colonel is around."

"Oh?"

Sam shrugs a little. "Yeah."

"And why do you think that might be?"

"Here lately he's just about the only place I feel safe."

It takes everything Natalie has not to scream with joy that her most reticent patient so quickly and easily voiced such a monumental observation. But it's also indicative of a problem she knew they'd be coming to. So she collects herself and starts talking to Sam about SSRIs.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

While her team is away she adjusts to two-more-pills-a-day and her on-base quarters. Natalie says it'll take a couple of weeks for the meds to help, but when they do she shouldn't be as inclined to burst into tears. That's good. She's soaked more than her fair share of the colonel's shirts lately. She didn't really mind crying in front of him because he never really said anything to her about it. Teal'c would raise an eyebrow and pat her shoulders uncomfortably even though he would wrap her into a hug. Daniel was more than useless with crying women as he seemed to be under the impression he was supposed to be fixing something.

But the colonel... he'd just let her cry. He wouldn't say anything. He wouldn't hold her too close or trap her against his body. He'd just curl an arm around her shoulders and let her lay her cheek against his collar bone. Sometimes he'd tuck his head into her neck so she could feel the soft cadence of his breath against her skin just to give her something to focus on that wasn't counting how many breakdowns _this_ made.

By the third night she's pissed about crawling into the hard, single bed and she finally says _screw it_ and leaves base without one of her trusty chaperones.

It's strange to be in her house alone at night. They've never left her alone more than an hour or so and never when it wasn't daylight. She takes the opportunity to hand wash her more delicate underwear and chuckles about the look on Daniel's face when he'd wandered into her bathroom and been confronted by silk and lace. After that she'd vowed to _not_ wash those items when he could encounter them. Even if the blush and stutter made her laugh harder than anything had in over six months.

And when that chore is done she thinks she might putter around the kitchen. There she is confronted by the pile of paid bills from her time away. She sits down and runs her fingers along the crisp edges of the envelopes. She reaches over for a pencil and the calculator she keeps handy just for working on her bills. She thinks about the colonel sitting right where she's sitting, she thinks about his nimble fingers pulling open the flaps of the envelopes, thinks about him using the eraser of a pencil to mash calculator buttons, thinks about him writing check after check to make sure she had a home to come back to even when none of them were even sure she was still alive.

She totals up the amount she owes him. She writes him a check for an ungodly amount of money she feels guilty she hadn't paid back sooner and when she's done she realizes she's crying. She curses but the tears remind her to take her evening pill.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Sam wakes up to the predawn hours and driving rain. Thunder crashes off in the distance and is almost immediately followed by a flash of lightning. She counts to four and hears another crash. She thinks it strange that thunder would wake her it really hadn't ever before. And then she hears a slight shuffling, a thump and a muffled curse from the direction of her kitchen. She tenses. Another curse. Then she takes a deep breath and settles back into her pillows. She knows that voice. She listens to the soft sounds of someone else puttering around her house. The television comes on and then voices narrow away until all she can hear is a very faint drone.

She lays there and listens for a few minutes more and then gets up and draws her robe around her tightly. Quietly she makes her way to the kitchen doorway. She leans against the jam and watches as the colonel makes coffee. Then he rifles through the fridge and comes out with an apple clutched between his teeth and his hands filled with a loaf of bread and a jar of the all-natural peanut butter nobody likes but her. With his back still to her, he crunches into the apple. She watches as he grabs the dishtowel off the counter and wipes juice from his chin. Then he sets about toasting two pieces of bread. She continues to watch as he grabs a banana from the fruit bowl and starts slicing it into thin discs. And when the toast is done he assembles a peanut butter and banana sandwich, pours a cup of coffee and then collects his breakfast and turns to head towards the living room and CNN.

"You're home," she murmurs when it's clear he's not noticed her presence.

He jerks and spins in her direction. Coffee sloshes onto the floor, his apple rolls off his plate and onto the counter coming to a wobbly stop on the bite he'd taken out of it already. And his eyes meet her with a shocked look. "Yeah. We got back a couple hours ago." He sets his plate down next to his apple and retrieves the dishtowel he'd used earlier to mop the coffee off the floor. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"You didn't," she shrugs. "Or, I don't think you did. I think it was the storm."

"Since when do storms wake you up?"

"Since when do you know what does or doesn't wake me up?"

"Carter," he says with a small grin as he tosses the towel into the corner where, she now knows, he will collect it and any others later in the day after the dishes are done and take them to the laundry, "I've been sleeping next to you in a tent for years. Birds, gunfire, Daniel blowing his nose – _those_ things wake you up. Thunder? Never."

She shrugs. "I like thunder."

His grin blooms. "I know."

She tilts her head and she knows she must look like a cat trying to figure him out. "Why did you come here?"

"Huh?" He takes another bite of now slightly bruised apple and she thinks it's probably because it'll give him a moment to come up with an appropriate answer.

"You could have gone home. Why did you come here?"

"Turns out a Major Carter illegally sprung herself from base. There was some concern as to her safety and state of mind."

"So you know Natalie put me on—"

"Happy pills?" He grins crookedly. "Yep."

"They're not working yet."

"Well, these things take time," he says irreverently.

"I didn't mean to worry anyone. I just couldn't stay there one more night."

"Well, you made it two nights longer than I thought you would. I lost ten bucks, by the way."

"Add it to my tab," she says and then remembers the check she wrote him the previous evening. She wanders past him to fix herself a cup of coffee. When she's done he's already gone on to the living room and has turned the television up to a better level he won't have to strain to hear. On her way to join him she grabs the check. She drops it in his lap as she passes by him to sit on the other end of the couch.

"What's this?" he asks as he picks it up and looks at it. His eyes widen at the total. "Carter, look—"

"No, sir. Take it."

He sighs heavily, "I don't want it."

"Well, neither do I." She sips her coffee and collects her thoughts. "I appreciate what you did. I really do. I'd have lost everything if you hadn't paid at least the mortgage."

"I didn't do it for you," he says around a mouthful of toast crumbs, slick banana and tongue-thickening peanut butter.

She arches an eyebrow at him.

"I did it because as long as I did you were coming home. And you would need a place to come home to. Sam, I did it for me."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"So that's it then, she'll be temporarily reassigned to the science department until she can meet the physical and psychological milestones we set for her." Janet closes the file in front of her and slides it across the table to General Hammond.

"You know, now that she's doing so much better it seems sort of wrong to be having these meetings _about_ Sam."

"What makes you think she's doing 'so much better', Daniel?"

"What? She's not? It's been over four months."

"She's moving through the full range of emotions, Colonel O'Neill. Psychologically we'd classify that as, well, better."

"Well, tactically we'd say that better isn't quite good."

Natalie sighs. "Doctor Jackson, we meet to discuss Sam's progress, not to gossip about her. Colonel O'Neill, please try not to discount progress because we haven't yet reached the end stage."

"What, exactly, is the end stage?" the colonel asks caustically.

"To put it simply, Colonel O'Neill, love."

"Love," he repeats, nonplussed.

"Yes. When she's able to love again – love herself, allow herself to love someone else – that's how we'll be able to tell she's processed through all of this."

"Right," he scoffs. "Okay, so where is she now?"

"Well, acutely, I'd say she's suffering from depression. That's a part of sadness."

"Says who?"

"Says who?" Daniel parrots. "Sounds reasonable to me."

"No," Colonel O'Neill says with a rolling gesture, "I meant, what school of thought is the good doctor here following."

"Ah," Natalie continues, "Plutchik."

"And who the hell is Plutchik?"

"He was a psychologist," Janet volunteers.

"Right. Great."

"I know you're not a fan of our wheelhouse, Colonel, but what we do…it works. If you'll let it."

"And Sam's letting it?"

Natalie decides honesty will yield more than pride at the moment. "Sometimes. Right now I think she's still mostly concerned with just getting through the day."

"She does seem to be breaking down more than she was before," Daniel observes.

"She's finally dealing with some things. She's got enough distance from the situation to really look at it with, if not objectivity, at least with cautious subjectivity. She's processing, Doctor Jackson. That's good. It also means we've moved passed the fear phase."

Colonel O'Neill opens his mouth to speak and Natalie notes the wry look in his eyes. "I'm not saying she's not going to get scared anymore. She will. Of course. But it means now we're dealing with new emotions and, therefore, new ways to move past the event."

"Okay, so this is good stuff then. The depression?"

"Not good, necessarily," Natalie's quick to point out. "But progress. In the right direction."

"Okay, well what comes next?"

"After sadness?" She waits for the men to nod and then a smile blooms across her face. "Anger."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"You know," Sam points out when she's sitting across her dining room table from the colonel for the fourth night in a row, "I think I've proven that I can stay alone now. You guys really don't need to be taking turns staying here."

"We're not exactly taking turns anymore," he says with a bluntness that surprises her. He continues after she's raised her eyebrow in question. "Well, Daniel's got a piece of rock that he's really interested in studying and Teal'c has a new batch of airmen to teach about using energy weapons. So you're stuck with me."

"I had noticed," she says with some humor, "that you've been here more than your fair share. But you can go home. I managed to keep myself alive when you guys were off world."

"You Carter-napped yourself after two days."

"Sir, I came _home_. I wasn't exactly hard to find. Hell, _you_ found me."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm just saying, I could use some…space."

"I'll give you all the space you need. But I'm not leaving."

Well, she hadn't expected that. "I'm sorry, sir?"

"I'm not leaving. You're just going to have to learn how to get some space with me still around."

"But, sir," she starts, but he cuts her off.

"But, nothing. You're taking drugs for depression. Pretty hefty drugs with names I can't pronounce. You're taking drugs for anxiety. You're taking drugs for pain even though you keep telling the doc you don't _have_ any pain. You don't eat regularly. You don't sleep regularly. You're only working two days a week. And I'm not going to let you hole up in your house and let life pass you by."

"Sir," she tries again.

"No, Carter. You know, Doc Jordan said you're were going to need friends – way back when you first came home. I'm not sure I understood why. I thought it was so you'd have someone to talk to. But you're not really talking. So I think it's about making sure you don't die due to sheer negligence. I'm here to make sure you don't die."

She sucks in a deep breath. "Sir, I'm not going to die. I'm fine now. Physically, anyway," she qualifies when she sees his eyebrows climb towards his hairline. "You're right, about all those other things, though. I am on several meds. And yes, I still have some pain. No, I don't really eat and yes, I still have trouble sleeping. No, I'm not working enough to keep my mind engaged; but sir, I'm _not_ going to die. I made it through the most brutal thing I could never have imagined. This part? The recovery? This isn't what kills me. It just can't be."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He has, Jack realizes, been lulled into a false sense of security. It's one thing to know, intellectually, that someone is depressed. But when they interact with you mostly normally for a few days – even after a couple of weeks' worth of them staining your shirt shoulders with tears – you start to believe that things are okay. You forget that there are such things as good days and bad days. And you forget that you're not with someone 24 hours a day no matter what you might think.

And so, after a few days of things mostly being okay, and after a few assurances he took more to heart than he apparently should have, he's surprised when she refuses to get out of bed the morning after she assured him she wasn't going to die.

"Sam, c'mon. You've got to eat something," he cajoles through her bedroom door.

He hears tears in her voice when she says, "Please, just not right now."

"I'm coming in."

"No!"

"You've got twenty minutes to pull yourself together. Take a shower. Put on some clothes. Because I'm coming in and I'm bringing breakfast."

"Fine," he hears her mutter and now petulance is mixed with the tears.

"Twenty minutes!" he says with a definitive knock on the door.

True to his word he goes back to her room twenty minutes later with a plate of breakfast and a cup of coffee in his hands. He taps the door with the side of his foot. "Carter? Chow time."

When she doesn't answer right away he's not worried. He had, after all, advised her to get a shower. So he pushes the bedroom door open and sees no lights have been turned on in either the room or the attached bathroom – where the door stands wide open. "Carter?"

Then he notices her window. It's open, as usual. But the screen's been removed. And she's gone.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Colonel O'Neill's going to be pretty worried. So, I'm going to call him."

Janet startles when Sam's hand flies across the table and snatches the phone out of her hand. "No."

"Sam, he just needs to know you're okay. What were you thinking sneaking out of your bedroom window like a teenager? And how did you get here so quickly?"

"I can run now, remember?"

"You _ran_ here?"

"_Please_ don't call him."

Just then the phone rings in Sam's hand and startles her. She drops the phone onto the table and Janet strikes out for it. She glances at the caller ID. "It's the Colonel."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She's not accustomed to doing childish things. And she's certainly not accustomed to having to face her commanding officer as if he were her father. So she refuses to even blush when Janet drops her off at home and the colonel opens her front door with a scowl. He starts to speak but she cuts him off. "I told you I wasn't hungry."

She's halfway down the hall when she hears him mutter, "I thought we weren't supposed to be at anger yet."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She spends the better part of two days so pissed at him that she doesn't speak a single phrase to him that isn't laced with epithets. But apparently she took him to heart when he told her he wasn't leaving because she doesn't order him out of her house while she's spitting nasty words at him. And after two days of being treated like he'd bought her a vacuum for their wedding anniversary he's shocked as hell when she appears in the living room doorway with tears streaming down her face.

"You don't deserve any of what I've said to you these last few days."

He can't help but grin and he pats the couch cushion next to him so she'll sit. "I figure you've got a handful of free passes. And besides," he says with a self-deprecating half-shrug, "I probably do deserve at least some of it for past actions if nothing else."

"But you're my commanding officer. You should have been reprimanding me for my behavior."

"I think we can agree that what happens in your house isn't related to the jobs we do for the Air Force."

"We're always officers, sir."

"Yeah," he says noncommittally. "But, you know, technically I'm not your commanding officer right now."

She looks up at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you're on medical leave from my command. You're working outside my capacity in very limited form. I'm not your CO. At least not until you're cleared for active duty."

"So I've spent all day worried I was going to be court martialed for nothing?"

"Sam, did you really think I charge you for…what? Being a pain in the ass?"

She chuckles. "I'm having a little controlling my emotions."

"I've noticed," he says dryly.

"When was I removed from your command?" she asks after a few quiet moments. "And why wasn't I told."

"It just happened. And you pretty much haven't been talking to me for a couple of days."

"So what now?"

"Now you continue to work on your science projects a couple days a week and spend some time concentrating on getting better. You've got all the time you need."

"I need to get back to work full time."

"Okay," he agrees. He'd anticipated this. He'd also anticipated a little more reaction to the revelation that he wasn't her CO anymore, but he'd take what he could get. "So you'll talk to the docs and find out exactly what you need to do to get that done. I'm not sure about field work, but I'd imagine the requirements for full time work on base would be a little less stringent."

"Okay then," she says with finality. "So now I have a plan."

"Actually you have a plan to make a plan."

She smiles at him but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. Not quite out of the woods yet, he supposes. But, as Natalie said, it's progress. In the right direction. And for now he'll take it.


	12. Secondary Emotion: Suffering

_**Author's Note: There seems to be some concern about the speed at which Sam is recovering. In fact, the speed at which she **_**isn't**_** recovering. This is a process, guys. And it'll get a little worse before it gets better. Keep in mind, near the end of the last chapter it had only been 13 weeks since she'd been rescued. That's about three months.**_

_**We've got eight more chapters of dealing with mostly negative emotions and what happened to her before we can start dealing with the positive emotions will take up the remaining chapters through the thirtieth – and final – chapter. Hang with me, please. There's a method to the madness and Sam has to break through these lows in order to fully appreciate and heal through the highs. Besides, what sort of payoff is success without a little struggle? And who is to say what success really is?**_

_**Many thanks to those who have engaged me in conversation about this story. Also, many thanks to those who are taking the time to read and/or review – your time is precious and I appreciate every moment you share with me.**_

* * *

"Sometimes I still hurt but I'm all healed up."

"Yeah," Jack nods. "Sometimes that happens."

Sam leans back and takes a sip of her hot tea then turns the mug in her hands to warm her fingers. "Between the time and the healing device, I just didn't think I'd still feel this way."

"Well, that and the meds. Right?"

"Which ones?"

"Pain pills. Head fixers. You choose."

"Yes. The anti-depressants. I'd thought the pain was psychosomatic at this point."

"And now you think it's not?"

"They're not helping."

"Yeah, Sam. They're helping."

"Not with the pain, they're not," she says with so much anger it surprises him. "I'm so damn tired of hurting."

"There's more than one kind of pain."

"What? You think I don't know that?"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jack wanders around his darkened living room, a pen in one hand and a glass of neat whiskey in the other. Now that Teal'c's back he's taking a night with Carter and Jack finds he doesn't quite know what to do with himself when he's not walking on egg shells around her.

He realizes all the things he'd like to have his hands in right now have migrated to her house over the course of the last few weeks. The paperwork he doesn't want to do but that Hammond's been griping about – the paperwork he'd retrieved the pen for – is sitting on her dining room table next to her stack of resumes for candidates for open positions in the science department. The shirt with the Guinness stain he'd been trying to get out is soaking in her laundry sink with a sweater she dropped cocktail sauce on. The DVD he'd rented so he could watch shit blow up is sitting on top of her DVD player next to some girly new-age music CD she'd taken to blaring in the middle of the night when she couldn't sleep – mostly that, she'd said, because nothing about it sounded at all like the clanking of Jaffa armor in a stone hallway.

Jack detours to the kitchen and dumps his barely-touched glass of whiskey down the sink drain, snags his jacket off the back of a dining room chair and his keys off the table. Who the hell was he trying to kid? He didn't need – or want – a break.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

They're standing shoulder to shoulder in the laundry room trying to scrub stains out of tops. She makes a disgusted sound low in her throat and thrusts her soft pink sweater into his hands and snatches the worn flannel out of his.

"I'm not making any progress with that. Trade me."

He chuckles. "Looks like I already have."

"You didn't have to tell Teal'c to go, you know."

"What? You want me to call him back?"

Sam shrugs but he catches a half smile out of the corner of his eye. He feels the callouses on his trigger finger catch against the fibers of her sweater and turns his fingers a little so it won't happen again.

"I'm just picturing him pointing a staff weapon at your stereo speakers about the time one of those whale calls comes blaring out of it."

This time Sam smiles outright but ducks her head so he only sees a flash of her pearly white teeth. "I don't think they allow him to take his staff weapon off base, sir."

"I think he'd find a way."

He massages a little more stain remover into her sweater and watches as the reddish orange blotch begins to fade away. He grunts affirmatively and shows it to her. She, in turn, shows him the stain on his shirt is gone as well. "Looks like we did it."

"It feels good to watch stains just disappear, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," he says but can't help the catch in his throat. "It does."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Several days later he wakes her up from yet another nightmare. She feels like she hasn't slept more than a couple hours at a stretch since this new round began. Those first nights he was reluctant to even venture into her room. Tonight, she notices, he sits on the edge of her bed.

"You back with me?"

She nods, and then swallows the thick saliva of fear that has collected on the back of her tongue. "Yeah."

"Coffee, tea or hot chocolate?"

She flicks the sweat-dampened covers off her legs and revels in the rush of cool air across her overheated skin. She watches goose pimples raise up across her shins and contemplates her choices. "Coffee."

He sighs. "So we're up for the day."

"Yep," she says definitively.

He glances at the clock. "Well, at least we made until three thirty this time." And he trails her out of the bedroom.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The next night Jack finds himself sitting off world, soaking up the warmth of a campfire, and nursing a bruised shoulder.

"I can't believe you were taken down by a sling shot," Daniel chuckles as he hands over a cup of coffee.

"I was taken down by a rock. That was propelled by a sling shot."

"I believe the young warrior was prepubescent," Teal'c volunteers with a Jaffa-esque smirk.

"All right, all right," Jack grouses.

The three men sit quietly for a few minutes and poke at the damp dirt with sticks. Daniel belches delicately and Teal'c follows up with a sound that rattles the branches above them. Jack chuckles.

"Sam really did temper our baser nature, didn't she?" Daniel observes.

"Some things are not meant for mixed company, Daniel Jackson."

"Some times it's nice to just be guys."

"I miss her."

"We all miss her, Daniel."

"How is Major Carter's recovery progressing?"

"She's…" Jack's not sure how to answer. He tosses a small rock into the fire and watches embers rise up in its wake. "She's suffering."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The next evening they're huddled up in a cave and Jack's madder than a hornet. "She'll be fine," Daniel tries to soothe.

"We were supposed to be back six hours ago."

"I'm sure she's on base. Or with Janet."

"_I'm_ sure she's home, trying to tough it out and climbing the walls."

"What? Why?"

"She's not sleeping, Daniel! What do you think that does to a person's state of mind?"

"So what's different about tonight?"

"I believe it is that O'Neill is not there with her."

"Do you stay there every night?" He's curious. He knew that for a while she needed someone with her, but he was sure that by now she'd be able to stay on her own.

"Not every night," Jack says slowly.

Daniel can tell he's hedging. "Jack…"

"What?" the older man asks caustically. "What could you possibly have to say about this situation, Daniel? You have some kind of ancient insight into how to help your friend when she's going off the rails? You know some way to help that doesn't include the instruction to 'be there'?"

Daniel raises his hands in supplication. "I was just asking."

"You don't just ask."

"This time I was." On Jack's withering glare he says, "Really."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She's sitting on her couch with her face buried in her hands. She's rocking back and forth. And even in her newly fragile state of mind she knows this isn't okay. At first she'd been irritated to learn someone had to be with her all the time. And then she adjusted to having one of the guys around simply because the company was nice. Slowly it transitioned and only the colonel stayed with her. And a little while later she realized he was with her every night. Well, every evening and weekends, too, if she were honest. And she's gotten used to never really being alone with her demons.

The first few times he'd had missions she'd been distracted with nights on base or dinner with Janet and Cassandra. But she really thought she was ready to stay by herself.

She was wrong.

She wanders aimlessly around her house for a while until she realizes she's cataloguing his existence in her house. His paperwork on the dining room table, his reading glasses on the coffee table, his coffee cup in the dish drainer, his jeans folded on top of the dryer, and his duffel bag on the floor next to the couch.

She flings open the door to the room she tries to call a home office slash guest room but that has become, more than anything else, a storage unit where boxes go to die. The red numbers on the digital clock next to the small bed are barely visible through a layer of dust and read 2:37 am. She picks up the box nearest the door and starts hauling things out to the garage.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Damn it, sir," Jack spouts as soon as he steps through the gate. "I want to know exactly which pipsqueak scientist sent us in the wrong fucking direction."

"Colonel O'Neill," Hammond's voice comes resignedly over the loudspeaker, "med evals and then debrief."

"Just tell me you know who it was, General."

And as pissed as he is, he finds himself answering the slight grin on the General's face. "The situation has been handled. Major Carter briefed the technician on proper use of compasses on planets with varying geomagnetic fields."

That means she's on base. She's on base and she's pissed because someone kept him from getting home to her on time. Well, you know, maybe that's why she's pissed. A grin spreads fully across his face.

"Infirmary first, Colonel," the General reminds him, but even Jack can hear the smile in the man's voice.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The fact that he was able to lean against the door to her lab for so long without being noticed was very telling. Her eyes were dark and sunken. She held her mouth tightly and her shoulders were up around her ears. "I heard you about took a lieutenant's head off today."

She jumps more than six inches into the air at the sounds of his voice.

"Just me," he soothes. "Did you sleep at all?"

She sinks down onto the stool by her worktable and shakes her head with a sigh. "I don't think so. Not really. And I only took his head off because I'm not allowed to demote people."

"What say we go home? I could use a hot shower and some hot chow. You look like you might need at least one of those yourself."

"There's nothing to eat at home."

He shrugs. "I'll pick up Chinese on the way. C'mon." He holds a hand out to her and wonders if she'll take it. She doesn't, but she does take it as an invitation and precedes him out the door. So they can go _home_. Together.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He wakes to the sound of a blood-curdling scream. He sits up, disoriented in the bed she prepared for him after weeks of sleeping on her couch. The upshot is that he's only a short sprint to her bedroom now. When he flings open the door, he's confronted by the business end of her service pistol and a wild look in her eyes.

"Sam, put down the gun."

"No, sir," she says with a calm that freezes his veins.

"There's nobody here but you and me." He chances a few steps into the room and notices that her gun stays trained on the door and he's got to admit he feels a damn sight better knowing it wasn't him she was aiming for.

The bushes rustle outside her bedroom window and she swings the gun in that direction. "He's here. I can feel him. Hear him. Can't you smell him?"

"Sam," he takes another cautious step towards the bed and curses the four feet of space and half a bed between him and disarming her, "listen to me." He shivers in the cool air of the room. "Look at me."

She does after a moment but her gun remains pointed at the window.

He indicates his sleepwear. "Do I look dressed for a showdown? It's you and me and a hell of a breeze out there." He gestures towards the window and her eyes flicker back in that direction before taking in his flannel pajama pants.

The moonlight glints off her dog tags in uneven measures as her chest heaves and he's momentarily frozen by the site of a warrior swathed in a down comforter. Her arm relaxes and a moment later the gun is on her bedside table and the safety snicks on. He exhales a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"Is that loaded, Sam?"

"What do you think?"

He sighs. "So, coffee?"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

They stand facing one another in her living room. "I didn't mean to hold a gun on you, sir."

"I know. But you did."

She nods. "I did."

"You know anybody's going to have to go through me to get to you, right?"

She wants to believe that but declines to answer. Instead, "What was it like for you?"

He takes the change of subject in stride. "Those were different days, Carter. I slept with a knife under my pillow, a gun in my bedside table and a terrified woman by my side."

"Did you ever hurt her?"

"No. But I was lucky. I know guys who did hurt their wives."

"Do you think I'll hurt you?"

"Not on purpose."

"But…you think I could?"

"Yeah, Carter, I think you could."

She walks back to her bedroom and retrieves her gun. When she gets back he's standing right where she left him. She hands him the gun. "I'm not getting any better."

"Maybe it's time you started taking getting help a little more seriously."

"I cancelled my last three scheduled sessions."

"I know."

"You do?" She's surprised. "Why didn't you make me go?"

"What would you have done if I did?"

"I'd have been pretty pissed."

"Yeah."

"I wouldn't have talked to her."

"You haven't been talking to her."

"I guess not."

"Sam, I'm with you all the way. However long this takes. You're not going to get better until you're ready to get better. But she can help."

"If I'll let her."

"You've got to let her do her job."

And she knows he's right. Because she can't do this anymore. Not like this.


	13. Primary Emotion: Sadness

_**Author's Notes: I'm woefully behind on review replies – I'll get there, I promise. But many thanks to everyone who has dropped me a line. **_

_**I'm glad to hear that the pacing isn't too troubling for most of you. This story is meticulously planned out so it's unlikely the pacing will change. That said, though, it may **_**feel**_** like it's moving quicker in later chapters as the subject matter becomes less fraught with tension. So, for those that feel like they're still stuck in the mire, please bear with me a little long. I think I can confidently say it'll be worth it.**_

* * *

"Colonel O'Neill says it's time for me to start taking therapy more seriously."

"What do you think?"

"I think I'm tired of waking up screaming."

"It's been…a while now. Not everyone decides right away that they want to get better. Not everyone even sees the problem. And for some people the real struggles take a while to manifest. Your body was putting a lot of effort into physical healing for a long time." Natalie shrugs. "Now it's your brain's turn."

"I pulled a gun on Colonel O'Neill last night."

Natalie's eyebrows climb up her forehead and Sam thinks she might have found that comical if the subject matter were a little less dire. "And that's what prompted him to suggest you take your therapy more seriously?"

"Well, no," Sam decides. "I think he was more worried about me and the nightmares. But we both agree I am capable of hurting him if I continue on like this."

"Just him?"

"He spends more time with me than anyone else does. Statistically speaking he's more likely to the target of my bad moment."

"Yes, let's talk about that. Scuttlebutt has it that Colonel O'Neill's moved in with you."

"What?!" And Sam's completely sure she doesn't like that defensive shriek in her voice. "No. No. Absolutely not."

"Wow. That was a pretty strong reaction."

"Was it?"

"Sam."

Sam fiddles with her wristwatch for a moment. "Okay, yeah, it was a strong reaction."

"Yes," Natalie nods exaggeratedly, "it was."

"He hasn't…moved in, exactly."

"Then what _has_ he done? You know…exactly."

"He stays over. Most nights."

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

"How does that make you feel?"

Sam considers all the possible answers quite carefully. Safe? Comfortable? Happy? Maybe not any of those things. But maybe all of them. At least, in small measures. And only when he's around. When he's not there she vacillates between freaking out and counting moments until he returns.

"I'm not sure, precisely. But it's not bad."

"So…it's good?"

"It's…" and Sam finds she doesn't have a clear-cut answer. Finally she settles on, "It's okay."

"When was the last time you lived with someone?"

Sam can't help the shudder that precedes her one word answer. "Jonas."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jack watches her warily out of the corner of his eye as he peels potatoes. She's been jumpy ever since she got home. He knows she saw Doctor Jordan but he's not sure how to bring it up. So, instead, he peels potatoes and watches her out of the corner of his eye like a coward she doesn't need.

She pretends to work her way through the mail but he's watched her take the same letter out of the same envelope three times. Watched her refold it and stuff it back into the envelope. And then watched her pull it back out. But he wants her to start the conversation.

Then, as if he's willed it, she begins. "We talked about Jonas today."

He's no psychologist but he thinks that perhaps that topic of conversation was not the most helpful one they could have broached. Instead of pointing that out he settles for, "Oh yeah?"

Sam nods and puts the letter back in the envelope. "I don't know why. Natalie asked me when I last lived with someone and it was Jonas. And then we were talking about him."

"Okay." Jack knows he sounds like a half idiot the way he draws out the simple word. He's not sure what they're really talking about.

"Did you know people think you live here now?"

And there it is. He could lie to her and tell her nobody's mentioned it to him. But what would that yield him? "It might have come up once or twice."

"And that doesn't bother you?"

"No," he answers honestly. "Does it bother you?"

She pulls the letter back out of the envelope and pretends to study it but he knows she's likely got it memorized by now. "I don't know."

"Because I'm not leaving."

She chuckles and it makes him smile. "No, sir, I didn't think you were."

"Well, just so we're clear."

"We're clear."

"How does it make you feel? Really, Sam, I want to know." He turns so the countertop cuts into his lower back and wipes his starchy hands on a dishtowel.

She puts the letter back in the envelope. "A little sad, I think."

He resists the urge to step toward her. "Sad? Why?"

"All the things I've done in my life…everything I thought I had to offer…all the things I thought I wanted…then all the things I knew I didn't…and this is what it takes to find someone who won't walk away? _Now_? When I'm," her hands flutter as she messily indicates her person, "whatever _this_ is? _This_ is what I have to be to keep a person around? I guess there's really something to the whole damsel in distress thing."

He cocks his head to the side in the way that usually makes her smile but she disappoints him by not even looking at him. "Is that why you think I'm here? Some sort of _damsel in distress thing_?"

"Well, why are you here?"

He shrugs. "I go where I'm needed."

"And you've decided you're needed now?"

"If not now, when?"

"Oh, God, sir. I don't know. Any _other_ time over the last few years? Any _other_ time when I wasn't _this_?"

"What makes you think there's something so wrong with _this_?"

"Because things that are right don't feel like this."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She loves that she's able to run again. She sets off in the early mornings nearly every day. On this day, though, there's a low, rough fog and a bit of a mist that keeps the clouds hanging low around the ground. She likes running through the fog and feeling the pull in her lungs. She likes the heavy feeling of her running clothes as they become more saturated with water. The longer she runs the more the mist turns into a light sprinkling of drops that at a mile and a half into her run turns into a drizzle that another half mile in turns into a driving rain that makes her feel really alive for the first time in a long time.

The rain, though it makes her feel alive, doesn't do anything about the sadness that has settled deep in her chest over the past couple of weeks. She's been in a holding pattern. She's not challenging anything around her. She's mostly just going through the motions. The colonel cooks breakfast; she eats it. Someone brings a device to her lab; she examines it. SG-1 goes off world; she doesn't. The doctors prescribe more medicine; she takes it. It's time to run; she runs.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She wonders if she'll ever really feel like a woman again. Since she's been home she's been careful to not think of herself in terms of being female – at least not since the soft, female parts of her healed on their own. She absolutely would not, _could not_, talk about _that_ with anyone – her father – holding a Tok'ra healing device. But, inexplicably since her body fat is still so low, her period started again. After that she can't help but study herself in the mirror.

She lost a lot of weight while she'd been a captive of Votan's Jaffa. She'd been a very respectable 134 pounds when she'd been taken. And a paltry, scrawny 104 when she'd been returned. Basically, Janet had told her, precisely what a human skeleton with essential muscle mass and internal organs would weigh at her height. She hadn't even known it was possible to lose 30 pounds in six months when you were already at a healthy weight. But apparently it was very possible. In the four and a half months since she's been back – longer than she was gone, she realizes with a start – she's only gained ten of those pounds back.

And looking in the mirror she can see it. Her breasts – once a feature she had a fair amount of feminine pride about – are flat and sagging like she is older than she really is. Her hipbones are prominent. Her arms as well – the collarbones and shoulder blades protruded in a way that seemed almost grotesque to her. Her thighs, once shapely and well toned, seem like the thin strips of muscle in crab legs to her now.

And yet, yet…she has her period. She wonders at that a little. Thinks it might have been something she'd have been irritated about once. But, instead, it makes her feel like her power – whatever it is deep inside her that allows her to fight – might be accessible again one day.

It takes her a moment to get over her embarrassment, but the colonel's at the grocery story and there's not a single feminine product in her house. She picks up the phone and calls his cell. She almost thinks she hears a smile in his voice when he agrees to pick up the necessary items.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He watches as she pushes pasta around her plate. Normally he'd be pushing her to eat. But not tonight. Tonight he's just happy she's gotten back a part of herself. A part of herself he's surprised by considering her recent medical evaluations. But what the hell does he really know? Marriage and age don't really give a man all that much insight into the mysterious inner workings of a woman's body. But he figures he's only been this pleased about a woman getting her period just one other time in his life and that was an entirely different situation almost thirty years in his past. And he can honestly say he's never so gleefully and without coercion purchased tampons in his life. The bag of individually wrapped Dove chocolates he'd casually tossed onto the kitchen counter had also particularly pleased her. He's hoping the way she plowed through half the bag is the reason she's not all too keen on dinner.

Hell, he's more likely to throw a party in honor of the calories she'd consumed so easily. He can't remember the last time he'd watched glee flit across her face. But that's what the chocolate had lit in her eyes. And if that's what it takes he'll bring home bags of the stuff. Then again, he supposes she should probably be putting all that lost weight back on in a healthier manner. But beggars weren't to be choosers and he's been doing his fair share of begging ever since she'd been taken.

Later that evening they wash dishes side by side since she objects to using the dishwasher when there are only two people's worth of dishes to do. As happy as he is, though, that there's been some forward progress, he's concerned by how quiet she's been tonight. So, when the dishes are done he pours her a half glass of wine and sits with her on the couch.

"So…it's been a good day," he starts.

"Yes, sir," she manages a grin and snags the bag of chocolates off the coffee table where he'd thrown them in an attempt to shift her focus towards dinner a couple hours before.

"You had therapy today?"

She nods. "I did."

"Want to talk about it?"

She sighs, eats a chocolate, takes a sip of wine and repeats. "I don't think we made much progress."

"No?"

"We talked about…well, dad, really. And Mark a little bit."

"Uh…okay." He not sure why the doc is wasting time on Sam's ancient history when there seem to be more pressing matters to discuss, but he's not the one who got his Ph.D. in psychology.

"Yeah, that was my reaction, too."

"Give her the benefit of the doubt, Carter. She probably knows what she's doing."

"Well, we sort of got to them in a round about way."

"In what way?"

"We were talking about the nightmares."

"I thought you dreamed about the…"

"Yeah. Me too."

"But…no?"

"Apparently not all the time."

"Sometimes you dream about your family?"

"Sometimes, sir, I dream about lots of other things."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"What does it feel like to be happy?"

"Haven't we done this part already?"

Natalie rolls her eyes. "A really, really long time ago. And, if you'll recall, you didn't answer the question then."

"I still don't know the answer."

"Try."

"Natalie—"

"Humor me, Sam."

"I know what happy isn't. Can't that be enough?"

"Maybe for people who aren't actively trying to be happy."

"I'm not actively trying to be happy."

"So what are you trying to be?"

"I don't know. Functional?"

"You're plenty functional, Sam. You never went through dysfunctional. Skipped right over that part. That's okay, you didn't miss anything crucial," Natalie hurries to point out when Sam eyes go a little stricken.

"I don't feel like I have it all together yet."

"Because you don't. But there's a difference between dysfunction and just not having solved all your issues."

"Okay."

"So. What does happiness feel like?"

"I don't know, Natalie," Sam says with exasperation. "The complete opposite of what I'm feeling right now."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"So you don't think you've been happy at all since you came home?" Jack can't help but ask after another one of what Sam described as an unproductive session.

"No. Yes. I don't know. I guess not."

"Think hard. Things haven't been all bad."

"No, I don't suppose they have."

"So just one, tiny – fleeting, even – moment of happiness."

"I don't know, sir. Those chocolates were pretty good."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Come have coffee with me." Sam looks up from the paperwork she's been hunched over for several hours.

"I don't have time, Daniel."

"Aw, c'mon, Sam. Real coffee. Starbucks," he cajoles.

She has to admit some non-base coffee _does _sound insanely good. "One cup," she offers but she's already closed the file in front of her and has her jacket half on.

"All right!" he pumps a fist into the air with far too much enthusiasm.

"It's just a cup of coffee, Daniel."

"Hey, you take your victories, I'll take mine."

They're barely three sips into their outrageously expensive coffees when he starts in. "How are you really?"

She sighs. She doesn't want to have this conversation every time she talks to someone but it seems inevitable these days. "What if I just told you we're on it?"

"We?"

"Me and Natalie."

"And Jack?"

"Daniel…" Damn she doesn't want to go ten rounds of 'has Colonel O'Neill moved in with you?' today. Not for a second time, anyway.

"Sam, I just want to make sure you're getting the help you need. Because, you know, I'm here if you need me. Teal'c, too."

"I've got help, Daniel. I just need a little normalcy."

"So less talk about how you're feeling all the time."

"That would be truly excellent."

He shifts back in his seat and takes care to look less vigilant; she'll give him that. "So, this is _really_ good coffee, right?"

And when she dissolves into giggles she sees the worry lines that have been etched around his eyes for weeks start to smooth out. _This_, she thinks_, is a moment of happiness._

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Natalie looks up with a start when Sam stalks into her office twenty weeks to the day after her return to Earth.

"I'm ready to talk about it now."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"So, where do we start?"

"I don't know, doc, you tell me."

Natalie grabs her legal pad and a pen, pours herself a cup of coffee and settles in across from Sam.

* * *

_**We've hit a milestone, folks. This chapter is the last of the more passive, ephemeral emotions for Sam. We're going to work our way through the more tangible parts of Anger next as we simultaneously delve into the details of what, exactly, happened to Sam on Votan. Expect that those will be an uncomfortable handful of chapters. But after that we'll get into the meat and potatoes of the rebirth associated with true healing and, for those that are really only here for the ship, some romance.**_


	14. Jack's Descent

_**Author's Note: An interlude now, if you don't mind. This chapter tells the story of how Jack spent his time while Sam was imprisoned. **_

_**I'm posting this chapter a little early as I'm going to be out of town on Monday. There may be an update mid-next-week depending on how everything else goes. But just in case, here's your installment.**_

_**And lastly, don't look now but this chapter was beta'd (by one of the coolest chicks going). But don't get used to it. She's busy. ;)**_

* * *

**Part III: Anger**

Jack finds himself parked in Sam's driveway more evenings than not since he left her on Votan and tonight's no different. He doesn't sleep. He's not really eating. He's living off hot showers, black coffee and a blind rage that's going to get him killed or fired one.

After the debrief – and the thrilling tale of SG-1's failed attempt at a rescue – Hammond had sent a MALP through the gate and Jack hadn't even had to ask. When it was blown to smithereens by a staff weapon upon arrival on the other side, however, even Jack had admitted that sending a contingent of personnel through the gate was more stupid than risky.

And as if the oppressive guilt weren't enough, he's got the way Daniel looks at him all the time like Jack just shot his puppy. Or, in reality, like he just left Daniel's best-friend-cum-little-sister in the hands of a First Prime who they _knew_ for absolute certain was using her for things none of them would even begin to abide on Earth.

Yes, on day one, Jack was angry, scared, lost, beaten, but above all motivated. He knew precisely where Sam was and what _wouldn't_ get her back. Then they couldn't use that knowledge. Jack took little comfort in those first days when Teal'c insisted – with setup they had on Votan – that Sam was unlikely to be moved. But now, here on day five, he's already grasping at straws and while knowing Sam's likely precisely where he left her is a small comfort, it's a comfort nonetheless.

He sits in his truck until a shaft of moonlight seems to illuminate her house key where it swings slightly on the key ring that dangles from his ignition. Deciding he's a man who should start looking for signs he uses his key to let himself into her home. He finds it oddly clean – clean in the way things are when they're simply undisturbed. He's not really sure how much time she ever spent at home or what she did when she was here, but it feels like whatever it was it _wasn't_ actually living in her house. Things are placed so specifically as if for decoration – even the reading glasses on the end table next to the couch.

Since it's been too many days since he's seen her, and since it's been so many nights since he slept, and mostly because it's been too long since his hands had a purpose, he finds himself collecting her mail in the dark. Then, a few hours later he finds himself soaking up a bit of quiet in the armchair in the corner. A few hours after that and his cell phone is ringing.

"Jack, where the hell are you?"

"What do you need, Daniel?"

"It's... The MALP, Jack. Today's MALP – it's still transmitting signal."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes. Gear up."

"General Hammond's already made the order, Jack. We're just waiting on you."

He's already in the truck when he hangs up on Daniel. His first reaction is elation – they're going to go get Sam and bring her home. His second reaction is self-loathing – they're doing it twenty minutes later than they should be doing it because he had to go stroke an emotional bruise. What the hell kind of man is he anyway these days?

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

George tries not to show his disappointment and frustration when teams 1, 5 and 13 come back through the gate. Dixon gives a rough shake of his head when he chances a look at George and all the other men's eyes are affixed to the ramp when they hand over their guns.

He sighs heavily before keying the button for the intercom system. "Med evals, gentleman. Debrief in an hour."

Then he holes himself up in his office and tries to remind himself he's a General in the God Damned Air Force and not a grieving man. A commotion in the Gate room draws his attention and he sees Colonel O'Neill losing his shit on a young Lieutenant and watches as that young Lieutenant stands there and takes it like a man, just like O'Neill needs him to. These people are all far too good at being what everyone else needs and far too bad at taking care of themselves. Proof positive, he thinks, illustrated by Samantha Carter's capture in the first place as she was doing far too good a job at protecting her team and too doing damn little to protect herself.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Daniel cringes when he hears Jack's heavy and angry sounding footfalls stop inside the door of his office. He steels himself while his back is still turned to his always surly teammate and then turns around, schooling his expression into some combination of hope and will. "What's up, Jack?"

"Do you have anything?"

Daniel indicates the books scattered around him – most open – and the sheaf of papers in his hand. "Nothing you haven't already been briefed on."

"It's been almost a week since you came up with anything new."

"You think I'm…what? Playing hooky or something, Jack? That I'm wasting time the three or four hours a night I'm sleeping? Or maybe you're objecting to those breaks I take here and there to eat and shower."

"Carter is being _tortured_ right now, Daniel."

"And I'm working as fast as I can." Daniel tries so hard to be angry at Jack – for leaving Sam, for putting so much pressure on him, for just basically being an ass since the first SGC sanctioned rescue attempt had yielded little more than a couple of staff blast injuries for SGC personnel – but he finds all he's really got the gumption for is another round of tears. He squeezes his eyes shut and hopes to keep from falling apart in front of Jack completely. The last time that had happened both men walked away feeling worse than they'd felt beforehand.

Jack turns to go but Daniel feels compelled to…what? Soothe Jack? Defend himself? He's not entirely sure. "I'm working as fast as I can," he repeats but this time with earnest. He just hopes Jack believes him.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Teal'c flattens O'Neill to the mat for the fifth time since they have been sparring. He thinks the younger and still hotheaded man may need the physical reminder of his body's limitations as he seems fairly intent on pushing himself past the point of usefulness. His surly attitude and short tempter have intensified and those things, coupled with the physical manifestation of his anger and frustration, have made for a man most on base avoid and would brand as a _loose cannon_.

"You should stay down, O'Neill," he advises when O'Neill rolls over with a groan and pushes himself onto his hands and knees.

"Or what? You'll _put_ me back down?" Jack looks over his shoulder and meets Teal'c's eye.

"Yes."

O'Neill rolls his eyes and then does not follow Teal'c's suggestion. So they square off once more. While O'Neill strikes with more force than usual and while the blows he lands are sharp and jarring he is predictable in his unpredictability and Teal'c has no problem knocking him down once more.

"You know, a real friend might throw a bout or two so I could get my head straight." O'Neill throws an arm over his eyes.

"I do not believe that to be true, O'Neill."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Looks like Mister Teal'c got the better of you tonight, Colonel."

Jack just grunts while Janet swabs antibiotic ointment on the cut over his eyebrow and tapes it closed with a butterfly bandage.

"I've patched you up a handful of times over the last few weeks, sir," she notes.

"I'm fine, Janet."

She doesn't say anything but he doesn't like the knowing look she gives him. She hands him a prescription bottle with a few painkillers inside and sends him home. It's not until he's checked the mail, sorted it and twisted a cap off a bottle of beer that he's aware sometime over the course of the last couple of weeks _home_ became Sam's place.

The next day when he checks her mail there's a late notice. He starts ripping through envelopes and makes sense of all the mail that's arrived in her absence. When he sees the reminder notice for the mortgage followed by a much more strongly worded demand letter he knows he's got to do something.

He looks around him at the place that should remind him so much of her but really only serves to remind him she's gone because until her capture he'd probably only been here a couple three times. So he sits down and writes a few checks, makes notes on the payment slips, wipes the thin layer of dust off all the surfaces and mows the yard. After a day of putting her world back in order he feels just a little better – just a little more in control – and he feels a little bit like she's rescue-able now. So he puts on a uniform and heads back to base. Time to get his head back into the game.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

It's only three days after he's put Sam's life on Earth back in order when Daniel comes bursting into the conference room with success painted all over his face. He's so excited that he forgets to use words Jack will understand but he gets the gist. Daniel's figured out how to circumvent the security measures that had previously kept the SG teams out of the fortress and out in the open long enough to be vulnerable to attack.

Just a couple hours later they've got a plan and a fifteen-person extraction team ready to cross the galaxy.

Twelve hours later eleven guys return with grim looks on their faces.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Daniel watches as Jack slams dangerously around the locker room. They'd hadn't saved Sam and had lost two members of SG-3 and two members of SG-5 in the process. Daniel tries to speak but Jack whirls around with fire in his eyes.

"How long has she been gone, Daniel? A month! A mother-fucking _month_! Garrett and Nelson had kids. Bowman was getting married next month."

"What, you think I don't know that? You think I don't care?" When Jack doesn't say anything, when his eyes turn from fire to ice, when his nostrils flare and fists clench and he takes a menacing step in Daniel's direction, it all becomes clear. "Oh my God. You think it's my fault. You think we don't have Sam and that those four men are dead because I screwed up." Daniel rakes a hand through his hair as he waits for familiar feeling of self-loathing to sweep through him. Instead, though, he finds anger licking like flames up from his toes. When the fire reaches his throat he spews it at Jack.

"There was absolutely no way _any_ of us could have known there were that many Jaffa there – in all the previous trips we'd made to the fortress we saw one _tenth_ that number and you know that. The translation was flawless and _I_ know that because of what was _missing_ at the fortress. But most of all, I resent the implication that I'm not _intimately_ aware of how long Sam's been missing – as if I somehow don't care as much as you do. And I'm not indifferent to the lives that were lost today in the pursuit of saving hers. So you can take your sanctimonious attitude and go to hell!"

He's not at all surprised when Jack hits him.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jack knows it all started to go downhill after that second rescue attempt when they lost four members of the SGC and yet still failed to rescue Sam. Since the disastrous encounter in the locker room Daniel had given him a wide berth. Teal'c has been looking at him askance since he found out what happened. Most everyone else looks at him like he's an explosive device with a countdown timer approaching zero. Hell, Hammond had even put a reprimand in his file. Apparently decking your subordinates was a no-no – even when you had a tenuous grip on reality.

Anymore, he stops at his house only long enough to grab clean clothes and make sure his own finances aren't going to hell in a hand basket. But he continues to sleep on Sam's couch and drink her fancy coffee that just doesn't hit the spot quite like Folgers seems to.

He listens to scary music at an inappropriate volume whenever he's not on base simply because the noise keeps him from thinking too hard. Because when he thinks he thinks about how the next rescue mission is more than likely going to be a recovery mission and how he's pretty sure he's not going to be able to handle that.

Still he keeps her life in such impeccable order no one else outside the SGC would ever suspect there's anything amiss. It makes him feel in control. It also makes him feel a little crazy.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Weeks go by before Hammond authorizes another rescue attempt and this time it's only after an undercover Tok'ra operative gets some intel that there's a new plaything at Votan's fortress of evil entertainment.

The mission is SNAFU from the word go, of course. But they opted against another guerrilla style extraction and decide on a more covert surgical strike. Hammond sidelines Jack as the mission commander, but at this point Jack figures he's lucky Hammond's even letting him go. His temper has become legendary and just about all the team leaders recommend against his involvement. Jack figures it is only the desperate look in his eyes that secures his position on the team.

When they make it inside the fortress with no loss of life, Jack's so stunned he nearly loses the thread of the mission objective. Hell, he was pretty sure this part was never going to happen. Thank god he isn't in charge after all, he supposes. But once they're inside they realize why the Tok'ra operative had kept referring to the place as a labyrinth.

They're overrun after an hour and make a strategic retreat.

They make camp several klicks east of the gate and try again after the next nightfall but this time the Jaffa are awaiting their return. They don't even venture inside.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

By now what little sleep he's getting is fraught with nightmares about finally getting to Sam only to find her half dead, then later fully dead, then later dismembered, and then after that snippets of her funeral and his own downward spiral into a bottle. After that it's random dreams of what might have been. Sometimes he dreams about other close calls that didn't end quite so well. Then he starts dreaming about Charlie again.

He can feel his long tenuous grasp on reality slipping through his fingers like so much sand.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He thinks he should be embarrassed one night when he saunters out of the shower and finds himself standing in Sam's kitchen with Daniel and Teal'c. He's not – not really. Okay, maybe about only being dressed in a towel.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He's definitely embarrassed when he answers the door for pizza a few nights later and is face to face with General Hammond.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The next day he's off the mission roster for Sam's rescue. He fractures a bone in his hand when he slugs the metal lockers.

Janet tisks while she wraps him up; she warns him to take care of himself because Sam's going to need him.

She may be right. But maybe not. So he tries not to think about it too much.

He still picks a fight in a bar later but he's careful to not throw any right hooks. The kid's got three inches, thirty pounds and twenty fewer years on him and it feels good when he lays the kid out.

The barkeep calls him a cab rather than the cops but Jack walks home instead and collapses into Sam's bed.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He awakens in the middle of the night just to stumble into the bathroom and puke his guts out. He's not sure if it's the alcohol or the scent of her that clings to the pillowcases.

But he always was able to hold his liquor.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The next day he changes her sheets, berates himself for being an idiot and vows not to step foot in her bedroom ever again.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He starts to clean up his act a little after that – in public at least. People still look at him like he's unhinged but they don't look scared of him anymore. Sorry for him, sure, but not scared. He knows he's not acting much like anybody's commanding officer these days – and especially not hers.

He sits at home and climbs the walls while two more rescue missions are conducted. Mission failure. Mission failure.

It's no wonder people are treating him more like a grieving widower than anything else.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

It takes him five weeks but Hammond's finally looking at him like he's got two feet firmly on the ground. Nobody has asked if he's still staying at Sam's and he hasn't volunteered the information – but he is. He doesn't venture any further down the hall than the spare bathroom, though. He keeps the place up, he keeps the bills paid, and he shows up for work every morning. If anybody has anything more to ask of him, though, he might lose it.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

And then the Tok'ra operative comes through again. Most of Votan's Jaffa have moved on.

Jack pleads with the General in a way he'd never thought he'd do but somehow Hammond relents and Jack finds himself commanding a mission they're only hoping at this point is rescue and not recovery.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

When they find her she's strung up but he thinks she's breathing and he's got about thirty good minutes before he breaks down. While he contemplates his descent he hears conversation around him.

"Easy, we've got you now," Janet soothes.

"I think there's something wrong with her arms," Daniel says as he crouches down next to her. The way he averts his eyes makes Jack realize Daniel's eyelevel with Sam's naked breasts. Then he realizes Sam's completely naked.

Nobody else seems to notice, though, so Jack isn't sure whether he should feel chivalrous or lecherous. "She needs fluids," Janet stresses.

"She _needs_ to be down from there," and Jack hopes the edge in his voice reads as urgency rather than a struggle against his inner demons.

"I believe she is conscious," Teal'c prompts and Jack's eyes fly to Sam's in time to see them slam closed.

She's conscious. She's cognizant. He starts repeating it like an inner-mantra as they release her from the shackles that keep her hanging upside down.

"Her pulse is very weak. She needs fluids immediately. We'll need a stretcher." Janet says the last into the walkie-talkie on her shoulder and Jack remembers they've got rear-D up top.

"She going to be okay going through the gate?" He's not sure why he asks. Hell if he's leaving her behind again.

"She'll have to be," Janet responds in a way that makes him feel like an idiot.

"It is unwise to remain here any longer," Teal'c says and Jack follows the big man's line of sight but can't hear whatever it is that piqued the Jaffa's interest.

"Can you hear me?" Janet prompts Sam and inexplicably Sam nods. "Good. We're going to move you now."

Sam passes out when they pick her up and he amazed she held out as long as she did. She looks just this side of death.

But they made it. They got her back.

And now he's got about twenty-eight minutes until he completely loses his shit.

"Let's move out."


	15. Tertiary Emotion: Disgust

_**Author's Note:**__ I took a vacation and then I took a week off. I have to admit it felt really good to focus on life and school for a while. But I just couldn't stay away. This chapter has been coming out a scene at a time for a while – quick bursts of energy that stop me from doing other things. While that was fun, I'm glad it's done and I get to share it with you._

_Also, we're halfway home now! Isn't that neat?_

_~A._

* * *

"Just stop it, okay?"

Jack realizes that while she phrases it like a question there no real room for argument. That doesn't mean he doesn't try. "I can't just stop looking at you completely."

"You can. You will. Or you'll leave."

"Carter, you're being unreasonable."

"Well, if anybody's going to be unreasonable, I think I've earned the right, don't you?" she asks waspishly.

"I think you've got the right to feel whatever you're feeling. But every now and again I'm going to look at you. If only so I don't run into you in the hallway."

"Don't be glib with me Jack O'Neill. You're not nearly as cute as you seem to think you are. You know what I meant."

"You mean you don't want me to _see _you when I look at you."

"I don't even want to have to see me right now."

"There's something I want you to understand." When she turns away from him and busies herself with straightening the folds in a used dishtowel he places a hand on her shoulder. "Sam. Look at me." She sighs deeply and turns to face him. "Yes, you look different. Considering what you've been through it would be shocking if you didn't. But everyday – even on the days you don't change out of your sweats or comb your hair – the sight of you is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Because you're here and you're alive and I wasn't sure both those things would ever be true again. So believe what you like, but I'm not thinking what you think I'm thinking when I look at you. Okay?"

"Okay," she finally says after much consideration.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"I've got a lot of weight left to gain back."

"Yes, you do."

"I want to gain it back healthily."

"I want that, too."

"No, Janet, _really_. I can't look like this anymore. I need to look like me again."

"Is this about health or vanity?"

"Is there something wrong with me if it's about both?"

"No."

"So, you'll help me?"

"There are some protein powders and special dietary shakes I can give you. But it's mostly about healthy exercise and putting the right number of calories into your body. It's going to take a while, Sam."

"How long?"

Janet's heart breaks a little as she watches insecurity flash across her friend's face. "How long until what?"

"How long until I'm pretty again?"

"Oh, Sam—"

"He said I'm beautiful because I'm alive. And I don't want that to be the reason."

"That's a good reason, Sam," and she doesn't even have to ask which _he_ Sam might have been referring to. Her live-in ex-CO, perhaps?

"Not a good enough reason, it isn't. I want him to look at me the way he used to. I want him to look at me the way he wasn't supposed to."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She's taken to wearing some of his large sweatshirts that have migrated over to her house. They are too large by half and have unattractive holes and fraying. She seems to seek them out. She seems to hide in them. He contemplates buying her some more attractive outerwear but thinks the old sweatshirts aren't just about warmth and the ability to hide in extra yardage but also, maybe, something about _him_. Which feels kind of nice, all things considered. All things being the tendency he has to come down on the bad side of her lately. Not that ferreting out a good side has been altogether easy in recent days. It seems like everybody and everything rubs her the wrong way.

He cooks dinner every night he's on world and for the past few days she's stood in the kitchen with him and used the blender to whip up one of the fancy weight-gaining shakes Janet gave her. He's not sure he likes how little food she eats once she sucks one down, but at least he knows she's getting the necessary nutrients and anything she eats on top of the shakes is added calories – so he tries to cook healthily, despite his own habits and desires. Sometimes, when he encounters her in the hallway in the middle of the night he's momentarily taken aback by how frail she is. And then he's instantly reminded how far she's come since her rescue. He feels bad for a moment for thinking she looks bad now, but he realizes that while progress is important it's still good to keep your eye on the prize, so to speak. And he's looking forward to the prize that is the return of her former figure.

Not that he'd even think of mentioning that to her. He hadn't lied when he told her she was beautiful just for being alive. Hell, he thinks she's beautiful all the time. Always has. But he can feel their relationship shifting – even if he created that shift artificially by simply moving in. And he can't help but hope that the shift will still be in play when she does have her figure back. Because, after all, he's just a man; and sometimes it's fun to revel in those kinds of thoughts. Especially when you've spent so long just being thankful that someone's alive.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She doesn't mention the shards of glass in her bedroom trashcan that used to be the face of the pretty gilt mirror she'd picked up at an antique shop in Alexandria back during her tenure at the Pentagon. Nor does she mention the little crystal crumbles that were once her parent's wedding toast glasses. She knows he saw the begonias he'd planted that she'd ripped up and threw into the trashcan in the garage but he didn't mention it and neither did she.

He doesn't say anything when she walks into the kitchen one night and her hair is well past regulation-short. He cracks a grin when he sees she's ripped the sleeves off one of his old sweatshirts in deference to the milder spring days. But they don't talk about the little fractures that have become part and parcel of her life. Things she's made – or he's made – part of his life as well. He didn't really sign on for all manner of hell, she supposes, but then again she's practically riding along with the four horsemen these days so what, precisely, does he expect?

He overlooks beer bottles in the back yard, wet towels on the bathroom floor and the fact that he's the only one who bothers to do laundry anymore – or dishes for that matter, and, more's the pity, seems to overlook how desperately she's crying out for contact. She's doing everything she can to push him; she's doing everything she can to pull him to her. He's oblivious.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"I don't even know what I'm doing anymore."

"How's that, Colonel O'Neill?"

Natalie studies him as he seems to collect his thoughts. Things have been progressing with Sam about the way she expected: slowly, painfully and with at least as many steps back as steps forward. It's been three weeks since Sam walked in and declared herself ready for treatment and Natalie can't say it hasn't at least been interesting. But while she's experienced enough things in her career to predict how her patients may react she finds herself consistently flummoxed by their loved ones – perhaps because relationships are so complicated. None of them are more so than whatever it is that the colonel and Sam are trying to juggle.

"I'm not sure exactly how much you know about what's been going on and the truth is, Doc, I haven't exactly been leveling with you."

"About what, exactly? That you're living with Sam? Or that you're in love with her? Or that she probably loves you, too – or at least she did before she was taken? Or maybe that you're letting her get away with working more hours than she's cleared to? Or maybe that she's having caffeine and alcohol on top of her meds?"

"Wow, those are an awful lot of blind shots in the dark."

"Even money says I'm right, though."

"So I guess Carter's really been talking to you."

"She has. You want to address any of those things?"

"She's destroying things that really matter to her."

"Like what?"

"She broke her parent's wedding crystal. Those two glasses have sat under the light in her china cabinet the whole time I've known her. Then one day they weren't there. I found pieces of them in the trashcan. Before that was the antique mirror that I thought was an accident. I planted some flowers at the front of the house and she pulled them up. Just days before she had sat out there and watered them and weeded and said how much she loved them…"

"Anything else?"

"I don't know. She's not acting like herself."

"You mean she's not acting like she acted _before_ she was held captive on Votan?"

"Well, of course she's not."

"And yet you find her behavior surprising?"

"Yes!"

"Why did the flowers upset you so much?"

"They didn't. Not really. They were just flowers."

"You sounded pretty upset."

"They were just posies, Doc. Don't read too much into it."

"I think they were more than that. I think they were symbolic. Colonel, you planted flowers for her. You planted something in her garden that was going to grow into something beautiful. She loved them. She tended to them. Then, in a fit of pique you didn't see coming, she ruthlessly ripped up that beauty that you planted in her garden that was going to grow and threw it away. She threw it away, Colonel."

"They were just flowers, Doctor Jordan," he says quietly.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

They fight sometimes and she tells him to go. Screams it at him, really. He thinks she's equal parts pissed and grateful when he simply closes himself inside the guestroom or disappears out to the garage. He knows she's trying to run him off to prove something to herself. But he's got something much more important to prove to her – even if she's hell-bent on hurting him while he shows her. In the mean time she's taking the anger out on her house. She's slammed just about every door she owns. He fixed the first two hinges and the first cracked jam. After that he brought her the toolbox and set it down at her feet.

She fixed the door and came to him later with a cold beer and an apology. Somewhere along the way he held her and she sobbed against his shoulder in a way she hadn't in weeks.

After the door slamming finally settles down – but only because she'd flat out broken her bedroom door and the whole thing needed to be replaced – is when it happens. He just happens to pass by her bedroom while she stands in front of a full-length mirror dressed in nothing but a pair of jeans. In a former life he probably would have been caught up by the reflection of her breasts but in the here and now he can't take his eyes off the scars that crisscross her back.

He must say something or maybe he gasps because she looks up sharply and their eyes meet in the reflective glass. He steps into the room and she doesn't avert her gaze so neither does he. Not until he's within reaching distance, anyway. But he keeps his arms resolutely by his sides. He clenches his fists. "I thought you had your dad heal you."

"Those are from before."

"Before the capture or before your rescue?"

"Votan's Jaffa gave them to me," she confirms.

When he reaches out to touch is when she realizes she's naked. She covers her breasts with her arms and drops her eyes but she doesn't turn away from the fingers that he glides over the silvery scars.

"I thought I asked you not to look at me."

"And I told you you're beautiful and now I'm telling you I'll look at you if I damn well want to. I know all this is hard for you, Sam, and I really want do whatever it takes to help you get better; but you seem to forget how hard this has been on the rest of us. How hard this has been on _me_. This happened to me too, Sam."

She opens her mouth to speak but he cuts her off. "I don't mean back then, Sam. Yeah, bad shit happened to me back then but I've moved passed that. I mean, what happened to you, the fact that you were missing and that I had something to do with that, _that_ happened to me. And I need a little help dealing with it, too. You know I don't do too well with all that touchy-feely psycho crap." He waits for the corner of her mouth to tip up and he's not disappointed. "So I kind of think I'm going to need you. And maybe you could need me too, a little."

She's quiet for a long time but finally she meet his eyes in the mirror again. "Okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He'd thought they were making progress. And then, just a week later he comes home one night and the mirror in the entranceway is broken. At first he thinks it's an accident but then he sees the little one in the hallway between two old Carter family photographs. Dread settles in the pit of his stomach. Sure enough the huge mirror in the spare bathroom is a spider web of cracks. In her bedroom the mirror on her dresser is broken in two by a large, diagonal crack. The full-length mirror they'd stood in front of and shared something profound is overturned and cracked.

Cautiously he looks into her bathroom. He finds more broken mirror along with broken woman. She sits despondently on the floor. She doesn't cry. She's holding one palm-sized piece of mirror out in front of her and staring through her reflection.

He pulls her up by her elbow. "C'mon."

"I don't want to go anywhere, Jack."

He pauses over his first name. The first time in a long time he can recollect hearing her use it to address him and he can't even enjoy it. "Too bad."

"I'm sorry about the mirrors."

"They're your mirrors, Carter." He pulls her into the bedroom and sits her down on the edge of her bed. He's taking her to the base but he'll be damned if he's taking her dressed in nothing but a button down shirt that looks like it was his before she'd streaked it with the blood that was the byproduct of her apparent outburst.

She sits there and waits for him to turn a circle in her bedroom before deciding on a course of action. He snatches jeans from her dresser and a one of his sweatshirts from the laundry basket on top of her chest of drawers. She lets him thread her legs into her jeans and allows him to coax her to stand. She doesn't flinch when his hands brush against her belly to button her pants and she doesn't blink when he unbuttons the shirt and pushes it off her arms. He puts the sweatshirt on her in a way that makes him think of dressing Charlie and tears gather thickly at the back of his throat. "You've got to see the docs. Tonight, Carter. We're done with this, okay?"

"I really hate it here."

"Earth?" His blood runs cold while he waits for the answer. He's not sure what he'll do if she answers in the affirmative.

"This house." He releases a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

"That's okay. We've got another one we can go to."

"You don't mind?"

"No."

"I've been breaking things."

"Yeah, you've got to stop that."

"I know."

"Doctors. Then home."

"If I have to."

"Tonight, you have to."

"Doctors, then home," she repeats. She says it like a mantra as they move through the house collecting what they'll need. And then, it's like a weight is lifted as soon as she's buckled safely into the truck. Halfway to the mountain she's asleep and he turns up the Puccini flowing out of his speakers. It's beautiful and slightly haunting. He embraces the familiar emotions and drives on.


End file.
